I ct  v>>  — S ST* TO 


The  “Things  which  are  not:”  God’s  chosen  instruments  for  advancing 

His  Kingdom. 


A SERMON, 


PREACHED  AT  CLEVELAND,  OHIO,  OCTOBER  1,  1861, 


BEFORE  THE 


American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions, 


AT  TUE1R 


FIFTY-SECOND  ANNUAL  MEETING. 


BY  RICHARD  S.  STORRS,  Jr.,  D.D., 

OF  BROOKI.Y-V,  NEW-YORK. 


NEW-YORK : 

JOHN  A.  GRAY,  PRINTER,  STEREOTYPER,  AND  BINDER, 

FIRE-PROOF  BUILDINGS, 

CORNER  OF  FRANKFORT  AND  JACOB  STREETS. 


1861. 


■ 


■ 


SERMON. 


1 Corinthians,  1 : 28,  (last  clause.) 

“ Yea,  and  things  which  arc  not,  to  bring  to  nought  things  that  are.  ’ 

This  clause  contains  a complete  thought,  and  suggests  to  us 
a theme  rich  enough,  large  enough,  to  engage  and  reward  our 
evening’s  meditation.  It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  single  it  out 
from  the  others  with  which  it  stands  associated,  and  to  make 
it  the  subject  of  our  discourse.  And  yet,  in  so  separating  it, 
we  must  not  sacrifice  the  peculiar  significance  and  the  added 
impressiveness  which  it  derives  from  its  position,  or  the  light 
which  is  cast  on  it  by  its  companions.  It  is  the  last  of  a series 
of  clauses,  of  which  each  that  precedes  it  prepares  the  way 
for  it,  and  by  natural  progress  leads  the  mind  toward  it.  And 
it  is  only  when  we  view  it  at  the  head  of  this  series,  as  sum- 
ming up  and  surpassing  the  previous  clauses,  that  we  precisely 
discern  and  wholly  appreciate  its  scope  and  meaning. 

“ For  ye  see  your  calling,  brethren,”  says  the  Apostle ; “ how 
that  not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not 
many  noble,  are  called ; but  God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of 
the  world  to  confound  the  wise  ; and  God  hath  chosen  the  weak 
things  of  the  world  to  confound  the  things  which  are  mighty  ; 
and  base  things  of  the  world,  and  things  which  are  despised, 
hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not,  to  bring  to 
nought  things  that  are.”  The  foolish  and  the  weak,  the  base 
and  the  despised  things — it  is  only  natural  that  from  the  last 


4 


and  lowest  of  these,  the  things  which  are  noticed  only  to  be 
contemned,  the  Apostle  should  step  to*  the  things  which  are 
not ; that  is,  which  have  either  no  existence,  except  in  germ  or 
mere  possibility,  or  certainly  no  existence  that  is  recognised 
by  mankind ; which  arrest  no  thought,  excite  no  fear,  and  are 
not  prominent  enough  to  be  scorned.  And  these  things,  he 
says,  the  Lord  hath  chosen — these  things  which  seem  still 
weaker  than  the  weakest,  and  whose  very  being  appears  but  a 
dream  of  the  imaginative  enthusiast — these  things  hath  he 
chosen,  to  bring  to  nought  the  things  that  are  ; the  great  insti- 
tutions, establishments,  forces,  which  mark  or  mould  the  consti- 
tution of  society.  lie  hath  chosen  them  for  this  purpose,  to 
the  end  that  his  name  may  be  magnified  by  their  agency,  and 
his  glory  be  revealed  in  their  ultimate  triumph.  He  is  able 
to  bring  them  to  success  and  to  victory,  to  human  thought 
non-existent  as  they  are,  because  his  foolishness  is  wiser  than 
men,  and  the  weakness  of  God  is  stronger  than  men.  And 
when  it  is  done,  no  flesh  shall  be  able  to  glory  in  his  presence. 

How  complete  is  the  climax  to  which  we  are  brought,  as 
we  thus  view  the  passage  ! How  sharply  discriminated  from 
those  that  attend  it,  is  the  thought  which  is  contained  in  these 
last  words  ! And  how  fruitful  and  wide  is  the  field  which  it 
opens  to  our  survey  ! It  is  a thought,  too,  peculiar  to  the  Gos- 
pel ; and  which  for  that  reason  the  better  befits  an  occasion 
wholly  devoted,  as  this  is,  to  conference  concerning  its  further 
advancement. 

That  the  “Things  which  are,”  at  any  time,  in  human  society, 
however  venerable,  however  strong,  are  always  liable  to  be 
displaced  by  others,  which  were  not  in  existence,  or  were  not 
of  recognised  importance  and  power,  when  the  former  were 
established,  but  which  subsequently  and  often  suddenly  are 
brought  to  developement  and  mastery  ; that  thus  the  aspects  of 
society  and  history  are  continually  changing,  and  each  suc- 
cessive form  of  civilization  is  likely  in  its  turn  to  give  place 


to  another,  into  whose  life  its  own  may  be  absorbed,  but  under 
whose  differences  it  is  buried : — these  are  facts  familiar  as  any 
fact  of  nature ; which  impress  immediately  the  most  careless 
observer;  to  question  which,  with  so  many  annals  before  us, 
crowded  with  thick  reports  of  change,  were  like  denying  the 
atmosphere  itself.  That  the  movement  which  thus  is  con- 
stantly going  on,  through  the  centuries,  around  the  world,  is 
on  the  whole  a movement  for  the  better ; that  the  “ Things 
which  are  not,”  so  far  as  men’s  earlier  knowledge  is  concerned, 
which  exist  but  in  embryo,  and  are  only  to  be  developed  by  a 
keener  observation,  or  a more  profound  and  exhaustive  expe- 
rience, are  yet  usually  superior  to  the  things  which  precede 
them,  and  more  replete  with  a vitalizing  energy ; that  thus 
each  industrious  and  thoughtful  community  is  likely  to  sur- 
pass in  its  later  years  the  attainments  of  its  earlier,  and  the 
race  itself  to  be  gradually  enriched,  invigorated,  and  elevated, 
as  the  centuries  proceed  : — these  also  are  facts  which  modern 
history  clearly  illustrates,  and  which,  without  any  indiscreet 
optimism,  we  may  gratefully  accept.  But  that  these  things 
of  which  the  age  that  is  at  any  time  knows  not  and  dreams 
not, — these  powers  which  exist  in  it  only  in  germ,  and  which 
make  no  appeal  either  to  its  hopes  or  its  sensitive  fears, — that 
these,  while  hidden  so  remotely  from  man,  are  all  the  time 
present  to  the  mind  of  the  Most  High  ; that  they  are  indeed 
his  pre-ordained  instruments,  not  only  for  working  the  changes 
which  shall  come  in  the  aspects  or  in  the  life  of  Society,  but 
for  the  higher,  grander  purpose  of  establishing  supremely  His 
Kingdom  in  the  world  ; that  he  has  incorporated  their  unseen 
elements  with  the  system  of  things  in  order  that  ultimately 
he  may  use  them  in  this  office,  and  make  them  auxiliaries  in 
subjecting  the  world  to  his  truth  and  his  Son  : — these  are  facts 
the  declaration  of  which  is  peculiar  to  our  Keligion  ; yet  which 
it  not  only  affirms  with  authority,  but  exhibits  and  demon- 
strates, in  its  actual  advancement  toward  the  conquest  of  the 


6 


Earth  ; and  which  it  offers  to  every  believer — to  us  who  are 
here  assembled  this  evening — as  a basis  on  which  to  found  the 
assurance  of  its  ultimate  triumph. 

So  here,  as  every  where,  does  Christianity  vindicate  its  ori- 
gin in  God’s  mind,  by  placing  us  at  once  upon  the  highest 
levels  of  truth,  and  opening  to  our  minds  the  widest  range 
for  reflection.  And  the  words  of  the  Apostle,  holding  in  them 
a principle  so  specific  and  profound,  present  to  us  a theme 
appropriate  and  adequate  to  our  present  occasion. 

To  this  theme,  therefore,  Fathers  and  Brethren,  I invite  your 
attention  : The  “ things  which  are  not,” — which  are  not  re- 
cognised by  man,  and  which  subsequent  times  alone  are  to  de- 
velope  into  power  and  mastery  — these  are  from  the  first 
God’s  chosen  instruments  for  the  advancement  of  IIis 
Kingdom  in  the  World.  If  this  he  true,  the  relations  of  the 
fact  to  the  character,  power,  and  government  of  God,  and  the 
bearings  of  the  fact  on  our  Missionary  enterprise,  will  indicate 
themselves  to  all  our  minds. 

That  we  may  get  the  thought  fully  before  us,  as  it  lay  at 
first  in  the  mind  of  the  Apostle,  and  may  receive  the  perfect 
impression  of  those  illustrations  of  its  truth  which  were  given 
in  the  centuries  that  succeeded,  let  us  call  before  us  in  rapid 
review  the  scenes  amid  which  the  text  was  written,  and  then 
the  events  which  became  its  immediate  and  complete  vindica- 
tion.— It  was  written,  you  remember,  from  that  delightful  and 
populous  city  planted  by  the  Ionian  colony  on  the  hills  over- 
looking ‘ the  Asian  meadows,’  along  the  Cayster.  In  this  city 
of  Ephesus,  important  and  peculiar,  partly  Greek  but  still 
more  Oriental  in  its  manners  and  spirit,  the  metropolis  of  a 
province,  and  with  a commerce  that  drew  to  its  wharves  the 
representatives  of  all  nations,  in  which  schools  of  philosophy 
seem  so  much  to  have  abounded  that  one  of  them  was  opened 
to  Paul  for  his  labors,  yet  in  which  the  Eastern  superstitions 


1 


and  magic  darkly  and  haughtily  confronted  philosophy,  and 
still  had  a power  which  they  had  not  either  at  Athens  or  at 
Rome, — in  this  city,  the  remains  of  whose  magnificent  theatre 
yet  strew  the  ground  in  colossal  confusion,  and  above  which 
then  shone  in  splendid  beauty  the  Temple  of  Diana,  whose 
graceful  colonnades  first  revealed  the  full  beauty  of  the  Ionic 
style,  and  whose  columns  of  jasper  still  perpetuate  among  men 
the  vision  of  its  glory, — in  this  city  where  the  East  and  the 
West  were  commingled,  and  within  whose  spacious  walls  and 
harbor  was  assembled  so  busy  and  so  various  a life, — it  was 
natural  that  the  Apostle,  coming  westward  from  Antioch, 
should  tarry  for  a time,  that  he  might  there  proclaim  the  Gos- 
pel. And  so  he  abode  there  for  more  than  two  years,  and 
from  thence  he  wrote  the  epistle  before  us. 

It  was  written  to  Corinth  ; that  wealthier,  more  brilliant,  and 
more  luxurious  town,  planted  upon  the  celebrated  Greek  Istli-  • 
mus,  and  by  its  position  attracting  the  trade  not  only  of 
Greece,  but  of  all  the  countries  whose  shores  were  washed  by 
either  of  the  seas  between  whose  almost  meeting  waves  it  for- 
tunately stood;  above  which  arose  in  austere  grandeur  the 
precipitous  heights  of  the  Acro-Corintlms  ; around  which  was 
spread  the  loveliest  beauty  of  the  land  and  the  water  ; whose 
architecture  was  unrivalled,  even  in  Greece,  in  its  sumptuous 
elegance ; in  whose  streets  all  arts  that  skill  could  gain,  and 
all  the  gifts  that  commerce  could  bring,  were  equally  at  home  ; 
and  yet  whose  manners  were  so  licentious  that  even  in  that 
gross  pagan  age  its  very  name  was  a synonyme  for  vice,  and 
that  from  it  went  a constant  influence  which  defiled  and  de- 
moralized wheresoever  it  touched. — To  the  Christians  in  this 
city  Paul  wrote  from  Ephesus  the  letter  which  contains  the 
declaration  of  the  text. 

In  effect,  therefore,  he  had  before  him  while  writing  the 
whole  expanse  of  the  Mediterranean  ; that  ‘ many-nationed  ’ 
sea,  still  full  of  interest  to  us  and  our  times,  but  which  was  to 


8 


the  old  world  what  all  the  oceans  are  to  ours ; yea,  more  than 
this : which  was  not  only  the  cradle  and  school  of  its  maritime 
enterprise,  and  the  scene  of  its  naval  strifes  and  conquests,  but 
the  constant  centre  of  its  most  powerful  civilizations;  around 
which  were  grouped,  as  if  by  a force  as  necessary  as  that 
which  forms  the  crystal  around  its  axis,  all  the  arts  and  the 
empires  then  most  prominent  in  the  world,  or  which  now  most 
attract  and  influence  our  minds.  Upon  or  near  the  shores  of 
this  sea,  the  labors  of  Paul  were  constantl}’-  performed.  Born 
within  sight  of  it,  his  whole  after  life  clung  to  it.  In  all  his 
incessant  missionary  tours  he  scarcely  left  it ; but  at  Caesarea, 
Antioch,  Ephesus,  Philippi,  Thessaloaica,  Athens,  Corinth, 
Rome,  perhaps  still  further  to  the  gates  of  the  Atlantic,  he  had 
it  before  him,  and  strove  with  all  the  energy  of  his  will,  in- 
spired and  sustained  by  his  Christian  enthusiasm,  to  stud  its 
shores  with  Christian  churches,  and  to  make  it  a centre  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  Son  in  the  world. 

o 

It  is  evident  then,  at  once,  from  this  point  of  view,  what 
were  the  institutions  which  Paul  describes  as  “ things  that 
are  the  great  established  powers  in  society,  which  withstood, 
or  at  least  did  not  harmonize  with,  the  extension  of  Christian- 
ity. And  upon  these  things,  that  we  may  receive  the  full  im- 
pression of  the  truth  which  he  uttered,  it  is  needful  that  we 
pause ; till  we  feel  in  part  the  vast  strength  they  possessed  ; till 
we  see  in  a measure  the  1 hiding  of  their  power.’  Then  bet- 
ter may  we  estimate,  in  comparison  with  them,  the  obscure, 
undeveloped,  and  unrecognised  forces,  by  which  in  God’s  plan, 
and  in  the  interest  of  His  kingdom,  they  were  all  to  be  de- 
stroyed. 

Foremost  among  these  “ Tilings  that  are” — these  powerful 
institutes  of  the  day  of  the  Apostle,  opposed  to  Christianity — 
we  must  reckon,  of  course,  that  haughty  Judaism,  dogmatic 
and  secular,  imperious  in  its  claims  and  impatient  in  its  hopes, 


9 


into  which  the  religion  given  by  God  to  the  people  of  his  elec* 
tion  had  by  degrees  been  transformed,  and  which  now  had  the 
seat  of  its  dominion  in  Palestine,  but  the  outposts  of  its  in- 
fluence in  many  cities  of  the  Empire.  Into  collision  and  con- 
troversy with  this,  Christianity  caino  at  the  very  beginning : 
since  the  more  essentially  harmonious  it  was  with  the  an- 
cient religion  truly  interpreted,  the  more  positive  and  vehe- 
ment was  the  contest  urged  against  it  by  that  arrogant  system 
which  now  clothed  itself  in  the  robes  and  occupied  the  place 
of  Moses  and  the  Prophets ; a system  not  content  to  be  recog- 
nised and  honored  as  Divine  in  its  sphere,  yet  introductory  to 
a higher,  but  claiming  for  itself  to  be  final  and  universal,  and 
challenging  for  its  own.  supremacy  in  the  world.  Uncon- 
scious of  imperfection,  and  intolerant  of  change,  this  bred  a 
temper  domineering  and  defiant  in  those  who  adhered  to  it 
toward  all  other  faiths,  but  most  of  all  toward  the  faith  which 
adored  a crucified  Nazarene.  And  immediately,  continually, 
in  every  city,  and  in  almost  each  village,  it  met  the  Apostle  ; 
at  Ephesus  or  at  Corinth,  no  less  than  at  Jerusalem  ; among 
his  own  kindred,  as  well  as  among  strangers.  It  lay  in  wait  for 
him  by  stealth,  and  assailed  him  with  violence.  More  often 
far  than  it  touched  his  person,  it  overshadowed  and  darkened 
his  thoughts.  And  always  it  fronted  him  as  an  urgent,  an- 
cient, and  inveterate  Power,  enthroned  supreme  among  his  own 
nation — the  most  religious  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth — and 
systematically  withstanding,  with  all  its  energy,  the  advance 
of  Christianity. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  significant  illustrations  of  the  drift 
of  human  nature — this  character  of  Judaism  in  the  day  of  the 
Apostle,  and  the  position  it  assumed  toward  the  doctrines  he 
proclaimed.  Ennobled  and  vitalised  as  it  had  been  at  the 
beginning,  by  the  supreme  truth  of  the  being  of  God,  eternal 
and  holy,  almighty  and  wise,  the  creator,  moral  governor, 
and  judge  of  the  Universe  ; receiving  a yet  mightier  practical 


10 


impressiveness  from  the  discoveries  which  it  made  of  his 
presence  and  providence,  and  of  his  perfect  law ; becoming 
pervaded  through  and  through  with  a divine  glory,  as  it 
showed  to  men  something  of  his  heavenly  empire,  rehearsed 
the  history  of  his  dealings  with  mankind,  and  even  unfolded 
through  prophecy  and  psalm  the  scope  and  splendor  of  his 
purposes  of  love;  bringing  all  these  manifold  elements  of 
power  into  contact  with  men,  through  a mechanism  of  wor- 
ship unequalled  in  its  majesty,  and  its  fitness  to  its  end : — the  re- 
ligion of  the  Hebrews  was  intrinsically  adapted,  not  only  above 
all  other  religions,  but  to  the  highest  degree  then  possible,  to 
educate  the  mind,  to  stimulate  the  conscience,  to  implant  and 
develope  the  holiest  affections,  and  to  make  the  nation  which 
* had  its  oracles  for  their  constant  possession  the  purest,  noblest, 
. and  most  devout  on  the  earth.  Ho  other  result  of  it  could 
have  been  anticipated  by  those  who  should  have  assumed  as 
an  axiom  the  moral  integrity  or  the  moral  indifference  of  the 
nature  of  man.  And  doubtless  such  effects,  through  the  grace 
of  the  Spirit,  were  realized  in  many,  whose  faces  now  glow  in 
the  vision  of  Christ. 

Yet  from  this  religion  the  nation  had  early  and  persistently 
swung  away,  into  grossest  idolatries ; reproducing  in  gold  the 
Egyptian  Apis  beneath  the  very  pavement  of  sapphire  on 
which  the  feet  of  God  were  treading  above  the  mount;  in  their 
subsequent  history,  polluting  the  hills  which  looked  out  upon  Je- 
rusalem with  the  fury  and  lust  of  sacrilegious  observances. 
And  when  they  had  at  length  been  driven  out  of  these,  by  the 
stern  words  of  preachers  and  the  sterner  strokes  of  providen- 
tial visitation,  — when  Assyrian  oppressions,  fulfilling  God’s 
plans,  had  forced  them  to  a new  recognition  of  Him,  and  made 
them  loathe  at  last  the  idolatries  whose  cruel  craft  had  so  torn 
and  despoiled  them, — they  only  turned  their  religion  to  an  oc- 
casion of  pride,  and  nurtured  beneath  it  the  very  arrogance 
and  ambition  which  it  was  especially  designed  to  subdue.  Its 


11 


mystic,  high,  and  moving  truths,  the  venerable  associations  it 
derived  from  antiquity,  the  precious  and  kindling  memories  of 
the  Fathers  by  which  it  was  consecrated,  the  wonderful  inter- 
ventions of  God  in  providence  by  which  so  often  it  had  been 
vindicated  or  rescued,  the  unique  impressiveness  of  tho  cere- 
monies and  offices  by  which  it  had  been  conveyed  through 
the  ages,  the  resplendent  array  of  miracles  which  it  wore  as 
the  breastplate  of  gems  and  the  golden  mitre  on  the  front  of 
its  records,  the  very  endurance  and  faith  of  the  martyrs  who 
had  died  beneath  the  hands  of  rulers  or  people  in  allegiance  to 
it — all  were  together  perverted  by  the  Jews  to  minister  more 
abundantly  to  their  national  pride,  and  to  make  them  less 
willing  to  receive  the  Messiah  whom  from  the  beginning  their 
religion  had  foreshadowed,  unless  He  should  come  as  a con- 
quering Prince,  reigning  visibly  at  Jerusalem,  and  carrying  his 
ensigns  with  squadrons  and  navies  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

This  influence  had  now  for  many  generations  been  working 
in  the  nation  ; and,  as  we  know,  it  had  reached  its  climax  when 
Paul  was  proclaiming  Christianity  in  the  world.  The  very 
political  calamities  of  the  Jews,  stinging  and  irritating  their 
unsubmissive  minds,  had  only  intensified  their  fanatical  ex- 
pectation of  victory  through  their  ritual  and  law ; had  only 
exasperated  their  scorn  of  a Messiah  who  should  seek  to  rule 
by  the  truth  and  by  love.  The  partial  successes  which  they  had 
realized, — in  establishing  synagogues  in  many  of  the  cities  to 
which  their  restless  enterprise  had  impelled  them,  in  gaining 
numerous  proselytes  from  the  heathen,  in  compelling  the  ad- 
miration of  some  of  the  higher  philosophical  minds  for  the 
grand  simplicity  in  which  their  faith  contrasted  the  mytholo- 
gies, in  adapting  through  the  Alexandrian  school  their  doc- 
trines and  rules  to  the  language,  and  even  in  some  degree  to 
the  spirit  of  the  Greeks, — these  had  still  further  invigorated 
the  tendency.  And  so  they  stood,  divided  among  themselves 
in  many  particulars,  yet  unanimous  in  a fierce  hostility  to  the 


12 


Gospel  : — the  Sadducees  denying  angels  and  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  almost  it  would  seem  the  existence  of  the  soul,  as 
independent  of  the  body,  while  still  holding  among  them  the 
office  of  high  .priest,  and  some  posts  of  chief  influence  in  the 
national  Council ; the  Pharisees  superadding  their  traditions 
to  the  law,  and  austerely  exacting  the  most  rigorous  and  lit- 
eral observance  of  both,  in  disregard  often  of  the  obvious  prin- 
ciples of  equity  and  of  charity ; the  Essenes  delighting  in 
pietistic  seclusion  and  remote  meditations;  the  Herodians 
affecting  foreign  manners,  and  maintaining  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  the  civil  ruler  in  matters  of  religion: — yet  all  agreed 
and  unitedly  zealous  in  expecting  the  propagation,  by  conquest 
of  arms,  of  their  ancient  faith,  and  all  contemning  the  religion 
of  Jesus.  It  was  to  them  not  only  a radical  heresy  and  schism 
in  their  national  church;  it  involved  what  seemed  to  them  a 
national  suicide,  the  final  extinction  of  hopes  they  had  cher- 
ished until  they  had  come  to  be  part  of  their  life. 

So  Judaism  confronted  Paul;  a perverted  system,  whose  an- 
cient glory  now  only  gave  energy  to  its  ambitious  plans,  and 
its  hatred  and  defiance  of  the  Gospel  he  preached.  Possessing 
the  strength  derived  from  great  truths,  it  used  that  strength 
relentlessly  against  him.  Retaining  for  its  service  a magnifi- 
cent ritual,  ordained  of  God,  it  sought  to  make  that  a sheet  of 
flame  to  consume  the  fruits  of  all  his  teachings.  Error  and 
verity  were  so  intermingled  in  its  practical  frame,  piety  and 
pride  were  so  combined  beneath  its  influence,  the  lust  of 
conquest  had  blended  so  intimately  with  religious  veneration, 
that  resistance  to  Christ  seemed  now  to  the  Jew  a matter  of 
conscience,  and  his  fiercest  passions  had  the  sanction  of  his 
religion.  Inevitably,  therefore,  by  the  essential  contrariety  of 
its  tendency  and  temper,  this  was  the  first  antagonist  of  the 
Gospel ; its  first,  and  also  in  some  respects  its  most  effective  and 
dangerous.  It  surrounded  Paul  in  the  synagogues.  It  even 
entered  the  churches.  Peter  himself,  and  many  of  the  Christ- 


13 


ians,  yielded  at  intervals  to  its  vast  influence ; and,  with  an  ex- 
traordinary tenacity  of  life,  where  it  seemed  altogether  sub- 
dued and  obliterated,  it  still  persistently  reappeared.  So 
stubborn  in  its  spirit,  so  thorough  in  its  discipline,  so  fanatical 
in  its  zeal,  and  so  fortressed  with  strength  on  every  side,  it  was 
onlv  the  prescience  of  an  inspired  apostle,  and  only  the  utmost 
courage  of  a will  insphered  as  was  Paul’s  in  the  will  of  the 
Most  High,  that  could  have  predicted  its  absolute  overthrow. 

And  second  in  the  order  of  these  “Things  that  are,” — these 
powerful  institutes  of  the  day  of  the  Apostle,  opposed  to 
Christianity  — must  be  reckoned  of  course  the  Heathenism 
which  prevailed  outside  of  the  Jews  among  all  nations;  which 
confronted  Paul  every  where,  ancient  as  man,  but  still  vigor- 
ous in  strength,  imperial  in  place,  and  arrayed  in  universal 
opposition  to  the  Gospel. — The  extent  of  this,  a glance  reveals 
to  ns.  But  how  mighty  it  was,  he  knew  and  saw  more  clearly 
than  we  can. 

It  is  difficult  for  any  man  to  appreciate  the  strength  of  re- 
ligious attachments  which  he  does  not  share  ; difficult  for  the 
Protestant  to  do  complete  justice  to  the  mind  of  the  Bomanist, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  Bomanist  to  understand  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  faith  of  the  Protestant.  The  Huguenot 
and  the  Papist  were  thus  dissevered  in  France;  and  the  Ty- 
rolese peasant  is  separated  to-day  from  the  disciple  of  him 
who  taught  at  Geneva,  by  chasms  more  deep  than  the  Alpine 
crevasses.  Most  of  all  is  it  difficult  for  one  educated  from 
childhood  beneath  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  accustomed  to  its 
discoveries  of  God,  its  holy  precepts  and  benign  invitations, 
and  its  majestic,  immortal  promises,  to  understand  the  power  of 
Heathenism  over  those  who  have  known  no  other  religion,  whose 
earliest  thoughts  have  been  modified  by  it,  and  all  whose  tem- 
per and  habits  of  life  have  been  formed  and  matured  beneath 
its  impressions.  And  not  even  he  who  has  learned  this  hard 


u 


lesson,  — not  even  the  most  observant  missionary  •who  has 
passed  his  life  in  the  midst  of  Heathenism,  as  it  now  exists  in 
India  for  example,  or  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  who  has  seen 
it  he  thinks  in  its  whole  omnipresent  and  voluminous  power, 
surrounding  the  minds  of  a people  like  an  atmosphere,  inhaled 
anew  with  every  breath,  and  mingling  itself  incessantly  and 
inseparably  with  the  currents  of  their  life  and  the  frame  of 
their  being, — not  even  he  can  appreciate  the  power  which  the 
antique  forms  of  Heathenism  had,  when  as  yet  no  purer  re- 
ligion contrasted  them  on  earth,  except  the  incomplete  and 
distasteful  religion  of  the  unhonored  Jews;  when  the  foremost 
and  most  cultivated  nations  of  the  earth  were  as  ardent  in  the 
maintainance  of  these  forms  of  religion  as  the  most  uncivilized, 
and  were  only  more  stately,  elaborate,  and  ingenious  in  their 
details  of  worship ; when  every  art  and  all  agencies  of  com- 
merce were  auxiliary  to  them,  all  literature  was  full  of  them, 
and  all  statesmanship  was  their  servant ; when,  in  a word, 
Heathenism  in  some  form  was  the  common  law  and  the  com- 
mon life  of  the  inhabited  World.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Paul 
confronted  it,  at  Ephesus  and  at  Corinth,  around  the  whole 
sweep  of  the  Mediterranean.  And  though  we  cannot  know 
as  he  did  how  immense  and  overwhelming  a power  it  was, 
yet  we,  I think,  may  perceive  this  in  part  if  we  consider 
some  obvious  facts. 

First  of  all,  then,  it  is  to  be  recognised  by  us  that  this  Heathen- 
ism which  so  withstood  Christianity  was  not  an  altogether  ar- 
tificial system  in  any  nation  ; that  it  grew  out  of  real  and  even 
deep  motions  in  the  general  mind,  and  was  not  in  its  substance 
a matter  of  chance  or  a creature  of  contrivance,  least  of  all  an 
arbitrary  and  fabricated  arrangement  either  of  state-craft  or  of 
priest-craft ; nay,  that  it  had  a certain  real  moral  life  in  it,  and 
was  related  not  to  depraved  desire  alone,  to  the  lust  and  the 
pride  which  it  never  denied  and  too  often  deified,  but  related 
also,  however  insufficiently,  to  needs  which  the  soul  always 


15 


feels  to  be  inmost  and  knows  to  be  abiding.  Its  answer  was  a 
vain  one,  but  it  sought  to  give  an  answer,  to  questions  which 
never  since  the  exile  from  Eden  have  ceased  profoundly  to 
agitate  the  race.  Unconscious  prophecies  of  better  things 
lurked  in  many  of  its  forms,  and  in  some  of  its  traditions. 
There  were  thoughts  in  it  that  had  drifted  down,  as  has  been 
said,  as  ‘ planks  from  the  wreck  of  Paradise.’  Its  sacrifices 
were  efforts  to  staunch  the  flow  from  bleeding  hearts.  And 
while  the  popular  mind  acknowledged  chiefly  the  hold  of  its 
ceremonies  .and  shows,  the  thoughtful  found  also  some  solace 
or  stimulus  in  its  sublimated  legends. 

Then  further  it  must  be  noticed  that  as  existing  in  any  nation 
it  took  the  form  most  germane  to  that  people,  to  its  genius  and 
spirit,  to  its  circumstances  and  habits ; and  that  every  where 
it  allied  itself  with  whatever  was  strongest,  whatever  most  im- 
pressed and  attracted  men’s  minds.  Thus  in  Greece,  from  the 
first,  it  enshrined  itself  in  Art ; made  eloquence  its  advocate ; 
was  indebted  for  the  memorable  form  which  it  assumed  to 
the  noble  poetry  in  which  its  mythologies  were  melodiously 
uttered.  It  was  there  at  the  same  time  a philosophy  for  the 
studious,  a cloister  for  the  religious,  a splendid  spectacle  and 
continual  entertainment  for  the  excitable  populace.  In  Egypt, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  folded  around  it  the  solemn  gloom  of 
those  austere  and  mystic  legends  which  told  of  the  destruction 
of  Osiris  by  Typlion,  or  traced  in  long  unfolding  terrors,  on  the 
walls  of  the  sealed  and  unsunned  tomb,  the  path  of  the  spirit 
from  its  birth  to  its  judgment.  In  Rome,  the  same  power  allied 
itself  with  politics,  became  a military  force,  selected  and 
blessed  the  standards  of  the  army,  added  sanctions  to  the  laws, 
and  apotheosized  the  emperor.  While  eastward  in  Assyria,  it 
subsided  to  a sluggish  and  luxurious  developement,  as  it  touched 
the  plains  whose  wealth  fed  empires,  and  whose  teeming  tilth 
gave  license  to  indolence.  Every  where,  with  spontaneous  flex- 
ibility and  precision,  the  special  form  of  the  Heathenism  which 


16 


prevailed  was  fitted  to  the  needs  and  the  temper  of  the  people  ; 
adjusting  itself  to  these  as  exactly  as  did  the  fleet  and  melting 
sea-wave  to  the  cliffs  and  crags  or  the  smooth  sand-reaches 
against  which  in  mobile  might  it  played. 

Still  further  we  must  remember  that  in  no  land  was  this 
recent ; in  none  was  it  devoid  of  that  dignity  and  authority 
which  were  derived  from  a high  antiquity ; while  to  all  the 
peoples,  in  proportion  to  their  advancement,  it  was  associated 
with  whatever  was  to  them  most  renowned  and  inspiring  in 
their  history.  Their  early  benefactors  and  eminent  chieftains 
had  been  deified  by  it.  It  bridged  the  interval  between  their 
times  and  the  Golden  Age.  It  was  signalized  by  connection 
with  all  their  inspiriting  national  successes.  It  was  under  the 
benediction,  as  he  fondly  believed,  of  his  ancestral  gods  that 
the  Greek  had  fought  at  Marathon  and  Plaffea.  From  the 
brazen  spoils  of  the  former  of  these  victories  the  colossal 
statue  of  Minerva  had  been  wrought,  which,  flashing  afar  from 
the  summit  of  the  Acropolis,  seemed  to  keep  perpetual  ward 
over  the  consecrated  city  and  scene.  It  was  the  god  Pan 
who,  in  the  terrible  clash  of  Platfea,  overwhelming  the  Per- 
sians with  sudden  fright  as  his  voice  of  thunder  broke  on  them 
from  the  air,  had  delivered  the  nation  in  the  crisis  of  its  peril, 
and  made  the  word  1 panic’  thenceforth  an  inheritance  of  the 
speech  of  mankind.  So  with  all  that  was  majestic  and  delight- 
ful in  the  past — and  we  must  not  forget  that  the  nations  of  the 
old  world  looked  back  into  the  past  far  more  fondly  than  we 
do,  whose  eyes,  by  Christianity,  have  been  turned  with  a higher 
expectation  toward  the  future, — with  all  that  was  charming 
and  inspiring  in  their  past,  their  religion  was  identified.  It  came 
to  them  consecrated  by  the  memories  most  precious.  It  was 
dear  to  them  as  the  bond  which  connected  their  life  with 
heroic  ages;  which  knit  them  to  those  great  Fathers  of  the 
State  who  had  learned  from  the  gods  their  secrets  of  power  as 
they  walked  with  them  familiarly  in  the  morning  of  time. 


17 


And  yet  further,  we  must  remember  that  diverse  as  were 
the  forms  of  Heathenism  which  severally  obtained  among  the 
nations,  no  one  of  them  was  essentially  isolated  from  or  discord- 
ant with  the  others  around  it;  that  the  Greek  might  find  much 
which  to  him  was  familiar  in  the  worships  of  the  East ; that  the 
Roman  had  no  difficulty  in  opening  his  Pantheon  to  any  god 
of  all  the  tribes,  in  giving  as  Gibbon  says  “ the  freedom  of 
the  city”  to  all  divinities ; that,  as  matter  of  fact,  the  inter- 
changes of  commerce  were  continually  bringing  the  different 
idolatries  to  blend  with  each  other ; and  that  when  Alexander, 
in  his  rapid  conquests,  carried  the  Hellenic  arts  and  influence 
over  the  East,  the  "Western  and  Oriental  heathenisms  com- 
mingled, with  ready  affinities,  to  a singular  extent.  Thus  all 
became  modified,  expanded,  invigorated ; and  each,  without 
losing  its  local  prestige,  derived  a fresh  access  of  strength  from 
the  others.  In  that  very  temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  beneath 
whose  shadow  Paul  was  writing,  while  the  shrine  was  in  all 
its  conception  Greek,  and  in  all  its  execution,  of  the  loveliest  of 
Greek  styles,  the  image  within  was  not  the  statue  which  a 
student  of  Phidias  or  Praxiteles  would  have  chiseled,  of  her 
who  hunted  with  flying  nymphs  on  Arcadian  hills,  instinct 
with  a vivid  virginal  authority ; it  was  a crude  rough  image 
of  wood,  like  those  still  seeu  in  Eastern  temples — below,  a sim- 
ple pointed  block  covered  with  mystic  animal  figures,  above, 
a mass  of  many  breasts. 

So  it  was  then,  in  part,  that  Heathenism  had  power  and  supre- 
macy on  earth  in  the  day  of  St.  Paul ; a power  incomparable 
by  that  which  it  now  has  among  any  people ; a supre- 
macy almost  literally  unquestioned.  It  covered  the  earth, 
embosomed  in  its  influence  all  ranks  and  vocations,  moulded 
every  institution,  infiltrated  its  forces  into  every  thing  human. 
Springing  out  of  the  heart  and  mind  of  mankind,  it  had  in 
turn,  from  its  place  of  power,  wrought  these  to  its  likeness, 
and  toned  them  to  an  absolute  sympathy  with  itself.  It  touched 
2 


18 


every  class,  and  had  its  appeal  for  every  person ; from  the  Sy- 
barite to  the  Stoic ; from  the  profligate  Alcibiades,  to  Socrates 
who  seemed  almost  a forerunner  of  the  Lord.  The  philoso- 
pher might  sneer  at  it,  but  even  he  infused  into  it  an  esoteric 
significance  which  dignified  and  endeared  it  to  himself  and  his 
pupils.  The  popular  mind  absorbed  it  greedily,  and  was  per- 
vaded in  every  fibre  by  its  impression.  Its  infinite  complica- 
tion of  fancies  and  myths  was  to  those  who  lived  under  it  a 
spiritual  system,  as  real  as  life,  as  vast  as  the  skies,  yet  as  near 
their  souls  as  friendship  or  hope.  Through  it  the  living  forces 
of  nature,  personified  and  familiarized,  seemed  to  leap  forth  to 
greet  the  shepherd  or  the  sailor.  Through  it  the  spirits  of 
their  dead  ancestors  seemed  to  the  citizens  invisibly  but  really 
to  brood  over  and  assist  their  troubled  minds  and  perilled  for- 
tunes. Above  all,  through  it  the  vast  Unknown,  the  some- 
thing Infinite  and  Enduring,  of  which  the  heavens  gave  them 
witness,  which  inarticulately  encircled  their  life,  shedding  on  it 
at  once  a shadow  and  a gleam, — the  Unspeakable  Power,  which 
as  Paul  saw  at  Athens,  when  looking  on  their  pathetic  altars, 
they  ‘ ignorantly  worshipped,’  and  to  which  the  Homans  were 
wont  formally  to  pray  when  the  shuddering  undulations  of  the 
earthquake  surprised  them  — this  seemed  to  them  brought 
nearer  their  souls,  and  almost  made  palpable  to  their  imagin- 
ations. 

Heathenism  to  many  had  thus  the  sacredness  of  a Faith. 
It  was  felt  a real  infidelity  to  deny  it ; a kind  of  atheism,  from 
which  sensitive  men  shrunk  then  as  now,  as  from  a denial  of 
man’s  great  birthright,  a piercing  confession  of  spiritual  or- 
phanage. And  the  religion  which  thus  grappled  and  held 
them  by  manifold  ties,  which  engaged  to  itself  on  every  side 
their  affections  and  passions,  and  intermingled  its  subtile  influ- 
ence with  all  their  letters,  laws,  and  thoughts,  had  become 
the  very  life  of  their  life  to  all  the  nations;  till  it  was  in  fact 
attempting  to  remould  their  nature  to  disturb  it. — Preemi- 


19 


nently,  too,  in  the  century  of  Paul,  when  the  prevalent  forms 
of  civilization  were  seen  to  have  culminated,  and  when  a sha- 
dowy but  jealous  unrest  was  invading  men’s  minds  and  troub- 
ling their  wills,  a reaction  had  commenced  toward  the  old 
forms  of  faith.  It  revealed  itself  widely,  in  new  ardors  of  de- 
votion. It  questioned  the  tendencies  of  philosophical  teaching. 
It  had  risen  in  some  to  a fanatical  zeal,  which  sent  them  forth 
to  encourage  or  enkindle  the  like  in  others ; so  that  heathenism 
had  begun  to  be  preached  as  well  as  cherished,  and  instances 
of  conversion  to  the  worship  of  the  gods  were  exultingly 
chronicled.  The  ‘ Revival  of  Heathenism,’  it  might  properly 
be  called  ; and  all  the  ancient  lire  of  the  system  was  stirring 
beneath  and  bursting  through  the  smouldering  embers,  and 
preparing  to  spread  itself  with  an  all  new  energy. 

This  was  not  either  a “ hurtless  lire.”  The  passions  of  men, 
which  in  its  divorce  of  morality  from  religion,  were  all  fostered 
by  Heathenism  : the  sensual  lusts,  which  for  those  who  were 
ensnared  by  them  it  hallowed  and  honored  as  a service  to  the 
gods;  the  cruelty,  falsehood,  and  tyrannous  self-will,  of  which 
it  exalted  the  patterns  to  the  heavens,  and  made  its  divinities 
the  most  signal  examples  ; — all  these,  not  less  than  the  more 
gentle  sentiments,  were  the  allies  of  its  might,  now  aroused 
for  its  defence.  To  assail  it  was  to  start  these  multiform,  enven- 
omed, and  many-fanged  passions  to  the  deadliest  resistance  ; so 
that  Paul  well  knew,  what  history  had  shown,  what  history 
afterward  more  fearfully  illustrated,  that  when  the  hour  of 
contest  came  there  was  no  weapon  in  all  the  armory  of  human 
craft  and  human  rage  that  would  not  be  enlisted  on  the  side  of 
these  religions ; that  the  shouting  amphitheatre  would  be  stilled 
before  the  agonies  of  those  torn  by  their  beasts;  that  the 
darkness  of  night  would  be  lurid  with  the  glare  of  their  pitch- 
robed  and  burning  victims ! 

And  yet,  in  view  of  all  this  it  was  that  the  dauntless  Apos- 
tle unflinchingly  affirmed  that  this  whole  Heathenism,  so  vast 


20 


and  various,  so  philosophic,  poetic,  and  sensual  by  turns,  so 
ancient,  so  haughty,  so  cruel  and  passionate,  and  so  replete 
with  resources,  should  be  shattered  and  exiled,  and  forever 
obliterated,  by  the  “ Things  which  were  not.” 

There  remains  then  but  one  other,  a third  thing,  to  be  re- 
cognised as  standing  among  the  “ Things  that  are  ” — the  pow- 
erful institutes  and  establishments  of  society,  opposed  to  Christ- 
ianity— when  Paul  was  writing  from  Ephesus  to  Corinth.  But 
this  was  also  the  most  powerful  of  all ; the  most  dangerous  to 
assail,  to  human  view  the  most  inaccessible  to  change  or  de- 
cay ; supreme  over  every  force  that  could  touch  it,  and  com- 
paring with  them  all  as  the  Mediterranean  with  the  restless 
streams  which  sought  and  sank  into  it.  It  was,  of  course,  the 
authority  and  power  of  Imperial  Rome.  Immense  in  ex- 
tent, immeasurable  in  energy,  this  was  also  so  completely  sub- 
ordinated to  Heathenism,  so  entirely  impregnated  and  ener- 
gized by  its  spirit,  that  the  Gospel  could  no  more  advance  to 
its  dominion  without  its  conversion  or  without  its  destruction, 
than  light  can  break  through  seven-fold  walls,  or  the  brook  can 
leap  the  mountain-chain.  This,  therefore,  must  be  reckoned, 
last  and  grandest,  among  the  things  that  met  the  Apostle  as 
those  which  in  the  interest  of  God’s  kingdom,  and  in  the  de- 
velopment of  His  purposes  for  it,  should  be  utterly,  finally, 
‘ brought  to  nought.’ 

It  was  hardly  as  yet  at  its  uttermost  height,  this  Imperial 
power ; for  scores  of  years  still  slowly  passed  before  that  age  of 
Trajan  and  the  Antonines  which  marked  its  consummate  might 
and  splendor ; while  it  was  later  even  than  this  that  Severus  car- 
ried his  victorious  arms  to  Ctesiphon  and  Seleucia,  transferred 
the  entire  legislative  power  from  the  Senate  to  himself,  and 
scattered  the  profuse  memorials  of  his  reign  over  Africa  and 
the  East.  But  already  had  Julius  Ccesar,  first  of  generals  and 
foremost  of  statesmen,  by  natural  force  the  leading  man  of  all 


21 


his  world,  laid  the  first  courses  of  that  immense  structure  in 
which  others  after  him  were  to  perpetuate  his  name,  and  with- 
out his  genius  to  outrun  his  plans.  Already  had  Augustus, 
with  marvellous  tact,  dissimulation  and  ability,  overcoming  all 
obstacles  and  destroying  all  rivals,  raised  himself  by  sure  steps 
to  the  empire  of  the  world.  While  retaining  artfully  some 
forms  of  the  Republic  he  had  centralized  all  authority  in  his 
will,  being  recognised  successively  as  General,  Emperor,  Su- 
preme Pontiff,  and  Censor.  He  had  adorned  with  the  spoils 
of  every  land,  and  had  almost  rebuilt,  the  imperial  city ; had 
added  other  regions  and  peoples  to  the  empire ; had  disci- 
plined the  troops,  tranquilized  the  provinces,  and  given  to  the 
world  an  unaccustomed  peace ; and  he  had  fostered  the  bril- 
liant literature  which  is  the  superb  and  imperishable  crown  of 
that  whole  age  which  bears  his  name.  lie  had  been  enthroned 
for  forty-five  years  on  the  Palatine  hill ; had  been  worshipped 
during  life  in  some  cities  of  the  empire  ; and,  after  his  death, 
had  been  raised  by  the  solemn  decree  of  the  Senate  to  the 
rank  of  a God. 

The  ‘dark  and  unrelenting’  Tiberius  who  followed  him, 
Caligula,  Claudius,  and  now  at  last  Hero,  in  front  of  whose 
stupendous  tyranny,  just  ripening  to  its  fulness,  the  Apostle 
was  writing,  had  successively  inherited  and  abused  his  prero- 
gatives ; and  their  absolute  power  had  been  only  confirmed  by 
time  and  use.  Hay,  even  their  unspeakable  cruelty  and  lust, 
by  continually  exciting  the  fears  of  the  people,  and  as  con- 
tinually debasing  their  character,  had  but  cemented  into  more 
solid  strength  the  fabric  of  that  unparalleled  domination  whose 
foundations  had  been  laid  by  a genius  so  rare,  a sagacity  so 
sure,  and  a courage  so  complete. 

And  so  was  this  empire  now  exhibited  to  Paul,  encircling 
the  sea  which  was  the  centre  of  his  thoughts,  from  Carthage 
to  Alexandria,  from  Alexandria  to  Ephesus,  and  on  to  the 
very  pillars  of  Hercules ; with  no  sign  of  weakness  and  with 


22 


no  shade  of  fear  on  all  its  frame ; full,  on  the  other  hand,  of 
the  most  intense  and  commanding  vitality  ; the  vigor  of  youth 
blending  in  its  life  with  the  disciplined  craft  which  was  the 
slow  growth  of  ages ; its  organization  the  most  perfect  of  Time ; 
its  wealth  the  most  ample  ; its  military  system  the  most  exact 
and  effective ; its  renown  the  most  various  ; its  ambition  as 
unbounded  as  if  conquest  were  a novelty,  and  the  stream  of  the 
Rubicon  still  was  its  limit.  Its  name  was  a terror  to  the  wild- 
est barbarians,  while  scholars  rejoiced  in  the  letters  which  it 
cherished.  The  armies,  to  which  it  had  given  a name  that 
signified  of  itself  their  constant  practice  and  incessant  activity, 
were  arrayed  over  the  earth  at  each  point  of  command,  from 
the  Indus  to  the  Tweed,  from  the  shores  of  Scandinavia  to 
the  Libyan  sands.  Their  helmets  flashed  in  the  streets  of  each 
city.  Their  iron-beaked  galleys,  from  Misenum  or  Ravenna, 
were  ready  at  a word  to  dart  to  the  onset  against  every  foe. 
The  British  woods  and  the  Assyrian  plains  were  equally 
familiar  with  their  triumphing  standards. 

The  hundred  millions  of  inhabitants  of  the  Empire,  from 
whom  these  armies  were  evermore  reinforced,  though  not 
indeed  pervaded  by  any  strong  principle  of  inward  unity, 
were  yet  by  no  means  merely  encircled  by  a brazen  ring  of 
military  force.  Their  obedience  was  in  large  part  voluntary 
and  stable.  They  were  actually  and  strongly  bound  to  the 
metropolis;  by  admiration  of  its  splendor,  as  well  as  awe  of 
its  power ; by  the  tolerance  in  each  province  of  the  local  reli- 
gion, and  to  some  extent  of  the  local  law ; by  the  Roman 
colonies,  which  were  pushed  in  all  directions  after  the  arms 
which  had  opened  the  way  for  them ; by  the  admission  to 
citizenship  of  those  provincials  who  most  desired  and  most 
had  deserved  it ; by  the  comparative  immunity  which  cer- 
tainly was  given  them  from  the  yet  more  capricious  and  un- 
endurable tyranny  of  the  smaller  despots  whom  Rome  dis- 
placed. Thus,  in  the  structure  of  this  wonderful  and  vast 


23 


establishment  of  government,  while  at  home  as  I have  said 
the  lingering  forms  of  the  antique  Republic  still  vailed  the 
might  of  a perfect  autocracy,  in  the  provinces  was  combined 
some  shadow  at  least  of  the  federative  principle  with  the 
power  of  a complete  and  irresponsible  despotism.  The  great 
roads  that  radiated  in  every  direction  from  the  golden  milestone 
within  the  forum  — crossing  or  even  piercing  the  hills,  and 
bridging  the  ravines,  with  an  imperial  disregard  of  all  natural 
obstacles — were  arteries  along  which  flowed  constant  circula- 
tions from  the  heart  to  the  extremities.  The  characteristic 
productions  of  each  region  became  gradually  dispersed  and 
domesticated  in  others.  And  Commerce,  Religion,  Letters, 
Law,  wove  each  its  strand  into  that  immense  and  magnificent 
girdle  with  which  the  earth  was  well-nigh  encircled. 

In  comparison  of  this  Empire,  therefore,  all  others  had  been 
feeble.  The  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  Persian  monarchies,  at  their 
largest  extent,  had  been  beside  it  but  fragmentary  domains, 
as  one  by  one  they  all  became  its  tributary  provinces.  Before 
its  unwaning  and  unshaken  majesty,  the  brief  empire  of 
Alexander  shone  in  History  only  as  the  meteor  contrasting  the 
sun.  There  have  been  prodigious  empires  since ; of  Charle- 
magne or  Napoleon  ; of  Timur  or  the  Turks  ; but  they  never 
at  any  time  have  approximated  this.  No  term  descriptive  of 
extension  represents  it,  if  it  indicate  less  than  a universality 
commensurate  with  the  then  existing  civilizations.  To  speak 
of  it  as  colossal,  is  to  fall  far  below  the  just  height  of  its  de- 
mands ; for  the  will  of  its  Emperor  was  an  earthly  omnipo- 
tence. To  resist  it,  was  like  crowding  a continent  from  its 
place.  To  escape  it,  was  almost  like  jumping  from  the  planet. 
When  more  than  once  the  slaves  rose  against  it,  multitudinous 
as  they  were,  of  blood  as  eager  as  their  masters’,  letting  slip 
at  them  its  legions  it  crushed  them  as  the  avalanche  crushes 
the  cottage.  When  the  Northern  tribes  dashed  tumultuously 
against  it,  those  hardy  tribes  whose  chieftains  boasted  that  for 


24 


fourteen  years  they  had  slept  beneath  no  roof  lower  than  the 
sky,  under  Marcus  Antoninus  it  pressed  them  hack  to  their 
fastnesses  and  forests  with  a force  as  irresistible  as  of  mount- 
ains upheaving.  The  emulous  and  cliivalric  Grecian  spirit 
had  quailed  before  it  in  a hopeless  despondency,  and  now  from 
Mount  Haem  us  to  the  Laconian  gulf  was  its  suppliant  vassal. 
The  sombre  and  haughty  Egyptian  genius,  which  had  once  built 
Thebes,  and  Memphis,  and  On,  and  had  shadowed  the  Nile 
with  the  statues  of  Rameses,  was  bruised  to  the  dust  beneath 
its  more  stately  and  imperious  tread.  Even  Jewish  stubborn- 
ness and  fanatical  pride,  proverbial  through  the  world,  had 
been  crushed  and  quelled  in  the  grasp  of  its  legions;  and  the 
castle  of  Antonia,  commanding  the  Temple,  was  but  one  of  the 
eyries  from  which  looked  down  on  a subjugated  world  its 
dominating  eagles. 

Considering  its  history,  considering  its  growth,  it  seemed 
hardly  so  much  a construction  of  man,  this  Empire  of  Rome, 
as  one  of  the  pre-ordained  elements  of  nature;  reaching  in  its 
exhaustive  roots  to  the  centres  of  history,  and  draining  the 
earth  to  give  it  nutriment ; increasing  with  a steadiness,  and  an 
immeasurable  might,  which  no  mere  art  or  generalship  could 
have  given  ; in  its  production  therefore  resistible  by  no  agen- 
cies, and  in  the  result  as  indestructible  by  assault  as  Lebanon 
or  the  Apennines.  Nay,  it  seemed  hardly  so  much  a power 
terrestrial,  in  its  amazing  and  terrific  augmentation — to  the 
imaginative  student  contemplating  its  wonders,  it  still  some-  • 
times  presents  itself  in  History,  hardly  so  much  a power  ter- 
restrial— as  a drear  and  vast  Fate  ; impersonal,  immense  ; long- 
slumbering  and  inert,  but  expanding  itself  rapidly  from  por- 
tentous beginnings  as  Christianity  came  near  ; spreading  over 
the  heavens,  infolding  the  earth,  locking  liberty  in  paralysis, 
while  giving  an  almost  demoniac  power  to  its  auxiliary  minds  ; 
combining  all  conquering  passions  and  powers  in  one  ultimate 
aggregate,  and  descending  beyond  help  on  the  overwhelmed 
nations  ! 


25 


So  it  stood  before  Paul,  as  at  Ephesus  he  saw  it,  as  every 
where  he  met  it,  as  he  knew  and  felt  it  environing  the  earth. 
And  so  long  as  it  remained  undestroyed,  unchanged,  with  its 
muscles  unrelaxed  and  its  heart  unsubdued,  the  supremacy  of 
the  Gospel  could  not  be  realized.  It  was  absolutely  arrested 
and  forbidden.  For  in  essential  and  immovable  antagonism 
this  fronted  the  Gospel.  Its  kingdom,  and  law,  and  life  were 
different.  Its  spirit  was  one  of  the  most  malign  selfishness ; 
its  ambitions  were  fierce,  its  passions  implacable,  and  its  whole 
aim  earthly.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  doctrine  which  Paul 
was  proclaiming  should  emerge  from  the  shelter  of  its  early 
insignificance,  and  begin  to  declare  itself  a world-mastering 
principle,  this  mightiest  empire  of  Time  was  its  enemy  ; its 
‘ enemy,’  did  I say  ? was  its  most  terrific  and  consuming  assail- 
ant. All  the  powers  that  pertained  to  it,  so  prodigious  and 
omnipresent,  as  swayed  by  one  will,  inspired  by  one  aim,  and 
pushed  to  their  purpose  with  relentless  ferocity,  were  to  con- 
verge at  once  on  the  work  of  arresting  and  then  of  eradicating 
the  hated  Christianity.  The  sharpness  of  swords  and  the  dark- 
ness of  prisons  would  be  its  swift  and  certain  answer  to  every 
appeal  which  invoked  for  the  Gospel  the  tolerance  that  it 
showed  toward  all  other  religions. — And  so  Paul  knew  that 
this  as  well,  this  mightiest  establishment  of  government  on 
the  earth,  this  impregnable  despotism  which  was  touched  by 
no  fear,  against  which  human  power  seemed  vain,  and  to  strike 
which  was  like  trying  to  startle  the  stars — that  this  should 
also,  in  God’s  own  time,  be  broken  aud  wrecked,  and  “ brought 
to  nought.” 


But  How  should  it  be  doxe  ? By  what  agencies  should  each 
of  these  prophesied  victories,  over  Judaism,  Heathenism,  and 
the  terrible  iron-limbed  Empire  of  Pome,  be  brought  to  pass  ? 
Not,  he  affirms,  by  the  forces  which  already  are  at  work  in 
the  world,  in  a manifest  development,  and  with  recognised 


23 


efficiency,  and  which  may  be  still  further  augmented  and  mul- 
tiplied, and  made  to  bear  on  this  new  issue  ; not  by  armies 
revolting,  or  statesmen  conspiring,  or  philosophers  projecting 
new  answers  to  Heathenism  ; not  by  nations  reclaiming  their 
ravaged  rights,  or  the  still  existing  Senate  combining  with  the 
people  to  bury  the  haughty  imperial  prerogative  in  a cata- 
clysm of  revolution.  The  forces  which  God  shall  employ  for 
this  work,  and  to  which  lie  shall  give  a might  irresistible,  are 
simply  thus  far  the  “Things  which  aee  not;”  which  exist  but 
in  embryo,  and  are  not  so  far  developed  or  recognised  that  men 
even  despise  them ; the  things  which  He  alone  can  bring  out 
of  the  secrets  of  thought  and  life,  and  make  triumphant  on 
their  mission. — It  is  here  that  wTe  encounter  the  whole  meaning 
of  the  Apostle,  and  rise  to  the  level  of  the  theme  he  presents 
to  us.  And  even  with  the  cursory  view  we  have  taken  of 
these  so  solid  and  gigantic  establishments  which  confronted 
the  Gospel,  how  apparent  to  us  is  the  truthful  energy  of  his 
expression.  How  immense  the  disparity  between  the  great 
powers  and  institutes  that  were,  and  the  agencies  so  recent  and 
so  imperceptible  which  were  to  overcome  them  ! 

For  what  were  these  agencies  ? To  apprehend  them  at  all 
in  their  primitive  insignificance,  we  must  go  back,  remember, 
of  all  that  Christianity  has  done  and  has  been,  of  all  that  it 
is  in  the  world  around  us,  and  think  of  it  as  it  was,  in  its  wholly 
unembodied  and  impalpable  life  ; back  of  churches,  schools, 
and  homes  ; before  one  temple  had  sprung  toward  heaven,  in 
the  novel  uplift  and  delight  of  its  architecture ; before  one 
treatise  had  wrought  its  principles  into  scientific  statement,  or 
clothed  them  in  the  grace  and  the  majesty  of  letters;  before 
any  government  had  sought  to  incorporate  its  rules  into  stat- 
utes ; before  any  one  of  all  the  great  names  now  associated  with 
it  had  become  its  bulwark  in  the  popular  confidence.  In  the 
simply  spiritual  elements  it  involved,  it  was  set  against  this 
array  which  opposed  it ; and  of  all  the  auxiliaries  which  it 


27 


afterward  gained,  not  one  had  as  yet  appeared  on  the  earth. 
How  utterly  insignificant  seemed  then  its  force  ! How  incredi- 
bly inadequate  to  the  end  to  be  accomplished,  its  tenuous, 
delicate,  and  precarious  instruments  ! 

The  truths  which  had  been  taught  the  Apostles,  and  after- 
ward recalled  to  them  and  unfolded  more  fully  by  the  witness 
of  the  Spirit,  and  which  were  to  be  enshrined  in  evangelical 
narratives,  not  one  of  which  had  yet  been  written,  which  were 
to  be  expounded  in  a series  of  letters  by  the  apostles  to  the 
churches,  of  which  only  those  by  Paul  himself  to  Thessalo- 
nica  had  thus  far  been  prepared, — these  were  the  primary 
instruments  to  be  used,  with  the  oral  proclamation  of  their 
principles  and  laws,  for  the  spread  of  God’s  Kingdom,  and  the 
overthrow  of  whatever  withstood  its  advance.  And  these! — 
it  seemed  like  binding  the  lightning  in  the  meshes  and  knots 
of  metaphysical  argument  to  set  them  to  the  work  which 
thus  lay  before  them.  Epistles,  and  talks  in  the  synagogue, 
against  armies ! The  might  that  lay  on  letters  and  lips,  against 
the  might  that  ruled  from  thrones ! The  publication  of  doc- 
trines, against  establishments  of  power  as  rooted  as  the  hills. 
The  sneer  of  Pilate,  “ What  is  truth  ” ? — ‘ one  scream  of  the 
trumpet,  one  rush  of  the  legionaries,  and  teaching  and 
teacher  both  are  ended  ’ ! — the  contemptuous  carelessness  of 
Gallio  afterward,  toward  what  seemed  even  to  his  practised 
mind  a dispute  about  words  and  an  antique  law : these  only 
represent  the  more  than  disdain,  the  sarcastic  indifference 
tending  only  toward  disgust,  with  which  the  ministers  of  the 
powers  that  were  regarded  such  invisible  weapons  of  thought. 

The  living  energy  of  Christianity  in  the  world,  through  the 
souls  into  which  its  truths  should  be  transferred,  throughout 
whose  affections  its  charity  should  be  shed,  whose  hopes  should 
be  kindled  and  their  courage  inspired  by  its  high  promises — 
this  personal  force  of  Christianity  in  the  world,  realizing  the 
principles  which  epistles  were  to  teach,  and  incarnating  the 
spirit  with  which  gospels  were  to  glow : this  was  the  second 


28 


of  the  agencies  to  be  used  for  the  triumph  of  God’s  King- 
dom over  all  which  withstood  it.  And  this  was  just  begin- 
ning to  be  realized,  under  the  resolute  ministry  of  the  apos- 
tles, at  a few  of  the  points  central  to  commerce  and  chief  in 
population.  The  woman  and  the  jailer  converted  at  Philippi, 
who  lead  the  long  march  of  European  Christendom  toward 
the  cross  and  its  service,  toward  the  crown  and  its  splendors, 
had  now  some  others  associated  with  them.  The  woman 
named  Damaris,  and  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  were  doubtless 
still  illustrating  at  Athens  a more  divine  temper  than  Grecian 
homes  had  hitherto  known,  or  Grecian  philosophy  ever  had 
taught.  And  at  Corinth,  Ephesus,  Thessalonica,  Berea,  Anti- 
och, Jerusalem,  and  a few  other  points,  individuals  could  be 
found  who  were  beginning  to  illustrate,  though  as  yet  how 
imperfectly,  the  kindling  contact  of  the  Divine  heart  with 
theirs,  the  renovating  force  of  the  spirit  of  the  Lord. 

But  this,  thus  far,  if  a power  at  all,  was  plainly  a power 
only  in  embryo.  And  it  might  well  be  questioned,  in  the  light 
of  previous  human  experience,  whether  it  were  a power  at  all ; 
whether,  as  matched  against  what  was  opposed  to  it,  the  cha- 
racteristic spirit  of  the  Christian  was  not  an  element  of  posi- 
tive weakness  and  dangerous  inefficiency.  For  it  was  meek- 
ness, arrayed  against  might ; penitence  and  piety,  against  a 
jealousy  and  wrath  which  swept  sea  and  land  with  military 
force.  It  was  a charity  which  forgave  all  offences,  against  the 
infuriated  passions  of  millions  who  were  eager  to  commit 

them.  It  was  a tender  and  scrupulous  patience,  that  hardly 
asserted  the  common  right  of  self-defence,  against  the  impetu- 
ous and  sanguinary  onset  of  bands  inured  to  rapine  and  blood ; 
whom  confession  of  helplessness  could  not  conciliate,  any 
more  than  an  armed  resistance  could  daunt  them  ; who  were 
only  more  savage  in  their  tyranny  over  those  who  lay  most 
entirely  and  plainly  at  their  mercy.  What  possible  chance, 

then,  on  mere  rational  grounds,  for  such  a spirit,  represented 


29 


ia  such  feeble  and  imperfect  communities,  scattered  so  widely 
from  each  other,  to  withstand  for  an  instant  the  real  resistance, 
much  more  to  overcome  the  marshalled  onset,  of  all  the  pow- 
ers arrayed  against  it!  "Words  cannot  surpass,  they  can 
hardly  set  forth,  the  apparent  utterness  of  the  impossibility. 
That  the  tuneful  strains  of  Orpheus’  lyre  should  have  tamed 
wild  beasts,  and  stirred  the  trees  and  rocks  to  motion,  could 
not  have  seemed  to  the  sceptical  philosopher  in  the  least  more 
improbable.  It  was  as  if  a child  of  days  would  rival  Jove  ; 
and  flinging  back  smiles  in  answer  to  thunder-bolts,  would 
seek  to  hurl  him  from  his  throne. 

And  yet  these  were  the  very  agencies — these  “ Tilings  which 
were  not”  in  every  sense  — which  were  not  regarded,  and 
which  hitherto  existed  only  in  germ,  these  Gospels  and  Epis- 
tles which  were  still  to  be  written,  these  teachings  and  preach- 
ings which  had  scarcely  commenced,  these  Christian  forces  in 
life  and  character  which  hardly  thus  far  had  appeared  on  the 
earth,  which  were  not  self-conscious  enough  to  be  formed  as 
yet  into  separate  communities,  which  could  not  be  spoken  of 
as  one  of  the  Fathers  afterward  spoke  of  them  as  ‘ verdant 
islets  amid  raging  oceans,’  but  which  now  were  only  as  scat- 
tered flowers  casually  dispersed  on  the  surface  of  a sea  that 
at  any  moment  might  swell  with  tempests, — these  were  the 
forces  which  God  had  chosen  to  bring  to  nought  the  “ Things 
that  were” : the  ancient,  immense,  and  impregnable  institu- 
tions, that  stood  in  all  their  august  might  and  tremendous 
effectiveness  fronting  the  Gospel.  Xot  with  energy  only,  but 
with  an  exact  precision  of  speech,  had  Paul  then  described 
them.  The  philosopher  thought  of  them,  if  he  thought  of 
them  at  all,  with  a contempt  only  greater  that  that  which  he 
gave  to  the  most  absurd  or  childish  of  fables.  The  soldier 
regarded  them  less  than  the  mists  which  had  hovered  last  year 
around  the  crests  of  the  hills.  To  the  Jew,  in  comparison  of 
his  august  forms  and  world-challenging  miracles,  they  seemed 
as  frail  and  shadowy  as  dreams.  The  whole  wisdom  of  the 


30 


world  anticipated  as  little  an  impression  from  them  as  we  that 
the  tiny  animalculse  in  the  ocean,  streaking  its  waves  with 
phosphorescent  glow,  will  arrest  the  revolution  of  shaft  and 
wheel,  and  stay  the  steamship  on  its  march. 

Those  secondary  forces,  too,  which  were  in  time  to  be 
evolved  by  God’s  plans,  and  confederated  in  effective  alliance 
with  these — although  of  course  existing  in  embryo,  they  were 
if  possible  still  more  unrecognised,  and  even  unrealized,  when 
Paul  was  writing.  How  far  they  all  were  present  yet,  even  to 
his  inspired  expectation,  we  cannot  say  ; though  some  of  them, 
no  doubt,  he  plainly  foresaw.  The  awakening  spiritual  long- 
ings under  Judaism,  at  which  his  ministry  to  so  large  an 
extent  was  sympathetically  aimed  ; the  awakening  moral 
instincts  within  Heathenism,  whose  premonitions  he  must  have 
felt,  of  which  Plutarch  soon  afterward  became  so  illustrious 
and  engaging  an  example ; the  gradual  progress  of  moral 
decline  in  all  the  systems  that  were  rooted  in  error  and  main- 
tained by  force,  a decline  which  was  vastly  increased  and  ac- 
celerated when  the  heavenlier  power  came  in  controversy  with 
them  ; the  reaction  which  took  place  in  even  the  hard-nerved 
Poman  mind,  when  all  the  arts  and  all  the  terrors  of  a perse- 
cuting world  were  found  unable  to  shake  the  hearts  or  silence 
the  lips  of  humble  men  and  holy  women  who  still  confessed 
Christ  amid  dungeons  and  flames,  and  under  the  reddening 
jaws  of  lions — a reaction  which  at  last  arrested  persecution, 
when  the  final  edict  of  Dioclesian  had  been  issued  from  that 
palace  at  Nicomedia  beside  whose  ruins  stands  to-day  a 
Christian  church,  and  which  came  ten  years  later  to  its  sud- 
den consummation  when  Constantine  took  the  cross  for  the 
ensign  of  the  empire,  and  blazoned  upon  it  the  monogram  of 
Christ ; — all  these  were  things  which  one  by  one  came  into 
developement,  each  in  its  time,  as  the  truths  and  the  spirit  of 
the  Gospel  went  forward,  and  which  had  been  parts,  from  the 
very  beginning,  of  the  enginery  of  God  for  the  work  to  bo 
accomplished,  but  which  were  as  latent,  when  Paul  looked 


3L 


forth  from  Ephesus  on  the  sea,  as  were  the  germs  of  modern 
oaks. 

And  those  still  additional  procedures  and  events,  also  aux- 
iliary to  these  more  silent  forces,  which  came  as  the  comets 
come,  with  exactest  precision  when  their  time  was  accom- 
plished,— already  they  were  purposed  in  the  mind  of  the  Most 
High ; already  lie  saw  their  seeds  unfolding ; hut  how 
vaguely,  if  at  all,  were  they  thus  for  foreshown  even  to  Paul ; 
how  entirely  unsuspected  were  they  yet  by  the  world  ! 

The  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  arms  of  Titus,  who  when 
Paul  was  writing  was  a lad  of  fifteen,  just  recovering  from 
the  poison  with  which  accident  or  design  had  nearly  blighted 
his  life,  and  who  seems  to  have  felt  himself  but  the  instrument 
of  a Power  which  he  could  not  comprehend  and  could  not 
contravene,  in  his  overthrow  of  the  city ; the  consequent 
extinction  of  the  Jewish  nationality,  the  final  obliteration  ot 
all  distinctions  between  the  tribes,  and  the  scattering  of  their 
impoverished  remnant  to  the  ends  of  the  earth : — this  was  a fact 
lying  still  as  hidden  among  God’s  plans  as  the  lightning  which 
summer  clouds  secrete  in  their  calm  folds,  but  which  came  at 
the  instant  for  which  it  was  prepared,  as  the  shattering  bolt 
drops  out  of  those  clouds  upon  fortress  or  tree.  And  then,  at 
last,  the  tremendous  descent  on  the  centres  of  the  Empire  of 
those  northern  barbarians  who,  when  the  Apostle  dwelt  at 
Ephesus,  and  for  many  years  after,  were  divided  among  them- 
selves, without  arts  or  arms,  without  iron  or  money,  strong 
only  in  undisciplined  valor,  and  hardly  more  regarded  by  the 
Romans  than  the  Indians  or  the  Esquimaux  now  are  by  us, 
but  who  already  were  mysteriously  pressed  forward  by  some 
power  from  behind  toward  the  seats  of  the  tyranny  which 
despised  and  forgot  them,  and  who,  when  at  length  they  broke 
upon  the  Empire,  though  destroying  its  structure,  revitalized 
its  blood,  broke  it  up  to  recast  it  for  the  basis  of  modern 
European  civilizations,  and  gave  to  Christianity  such  a sweep- 


32 


ing  distribution  as  ages  without  this  could  not  hare  accom- 
plished : — this  was  another  of  those  latent  forces,  then  existing 
but  in  germ,  not  discovered  or  hinted  to  the  minds  of  mankind, 
but  which  lay  already  in  the  reach  of  God’s  view,  and  was 
prepared  at  the  crisis  for  the  grasp  of  His  will,  for  the  over- 
throw of  whatever  opposed  his  evangel ! 

These  were  the  instruments  which  He  had  selected,  so 
utterly  vague  and  formless  hitherto,  possibilities  only  and  not 
actual  powers,  to  accomplish  his  majestic  and  beneficent  will. 
And  through  them,  by  His  might,  it  did  come  to  pass  in  the  due 
time,  as  Paul  had  known  and  declared  that  it  should,  that  the 
Gospel  which  seemed  so  slight  a force  when  lie  was  proclaim- 
ing it  in  the  school  of  Tyrannus,  and  the  agencies  for  which 
looked  so  frail  and  so  few,  did  triumph  illustriously  and  domi- 
nate for  all  time  over  the  colossal  institutions  and  influences 
which  resisted  its  march.  "Where  none  had  welcomed,  there 
all  at  last  accepted  and  honored  it.  Where  every  thing  had 
opposed  it,  there  every  thing  sped  to  do  it  service.  The  truths 
it  uttered, — spreading  electrically  from  mind  to  mind,  with 
resistless  velocity  and  atmospheric  ubiquity  they  came  to 
pervade  and  irradiate  the  nations.  The  spiritual  life  in  the 
souls  of  believers, — rushing  with  fleet  though  silent  contagion 
from  heart  to  heart,  and  from  people  to  people,  it  remoulded 
literature,  it  subsidized  commerce,  it  changed  the  aspects  and 
the  tendencies  of  society,  and  it  blossomed  into  churches  as 
the  hidden  vegetative  force  of  the  spring  bursts  forth  into 
flowers  or  shoots  upward  in  trees.  Judaism  was  surpassed, 
absorbed,  and  terminated,  in  a higher  Religion,  more  adequate 
to  man’s  wants,  more  illustrative  of  God’s  glory.  Heathenism 
was  not  only  broken  down  and  exterminated  on  the  scenes  in 
which  so  long  it  had  reigned,  but  it  was  made,  thenceforth  and 
forever,  the  veriest  outcast  of  civilization.  The  Roman  Em- 
pire was  as  finally  extinguished  as  if  the  crust  of  the  globe 
had  been  opened  to  swallow  it  up.  And  all  was  wrought — 


33 


this  change  at  which  the  world  still  wonders,  and  which  no 
other  change  recorded  in  history  ever  has  paralleled — all  was 
wrought,  within  a few  centuries,  by  what  at  the  outset  had 
appeared  so  unreal  or  so  ineffectual.  God’s  might  had 
crowned  with  an  absolute  victory  what  mankind  had  de- 
spised; and  weakness,  as  used  by  Omnipotence,  was  supreme. 
The  vanishing  shadow,  as  it  looked  to  men’s  eyes,  had  shaken 
and  dissolved  the  earth-centred  mountain.  Doctrine  and  suf- 
fering had  discomfited  despotism.  The  market-places  vocal, 
and  the  catacombs  crowded,  had  been  mightier  than  armies 
The  Mamertine  Prison  had  conquered  the  Capitol ! 

“The  city  of  God  is  built,”  it  has  been  said,  “at  the  conflu- 
ence of  three  great  civilizations.”  It  is  built  as  well,  let  it 
never  be  forgotten,  on  the  ruins  of  three  prodigious,  ambitious, 
and  defiant  establishments ; a perverted  Judaism,  deriving  vast 
strength  from  the  truths  it  denied ; an  ancient,  haughty,  and 
universal  Ileatlienism;  a military  Empire  that  encompassed 
the  earth.  And  the  forces  which  brought  all  these  to  nought, 
they  were  not  descending  squadrons  of  angels ; they  were  not 
astute  combinations  of  statesmen,  the  eloquence  of  scholars 
or  the  strategy  of  soldiers  ; they  were  forces  which  Paul  could 
only  describe,  even  in  his  day,  a score  of  years  after  Christ 
had  ascended,  as  “ Things  which  are  not”  ! 

Fathers  and  Brethren  : I have  tarried  too  long,  I fear,  for 
your  patience,  though  not  long  enough  for  the  demands  of 
the  theme,  on  this  illustration  of  the  words  of  the  text ; on 
this  majestic  demonstration  in  history  of  their  profound  and 
literal  truth.  And  now,  as  we  turn  from  Ephesus  and  Corinth, 
and  leave  the  whole  sphere  of  ancient  life  which  they  repre- 
sent, let  us  take  with  us  the  thoughts  with  which  the  theme  is 
instinct,  and  which  fit  themselves  to  our  assembly. 

Let  us  meditate  anew  on  the  majesty  of  God,  which  is 
shown  us  here  in  full  brightness  of  discovery,  and  which  never 
should  cease  to  inspire  our  hearts. — It  is  shown  us  in  nature  ; 

3 


34 


not  so  much  amid  phenomena  the  most  dazzling  or  vast,  as 
where  he  makes  the  force  which  looks  smallest  the  lord  of  the 
greater,  and  where  he  sets  the  ^unseen  energies  to  construct 
and  control  the  combinations  of  matter ; where  he  leaves  the 
great  laws  which  regulate  the  worlds  mere  invisible  concep- 
tions and  melodious  ideas  of  his  archetypal  and  tranquil 
mind;  where  he  poises  the  Universe,  in  the  final  analysis,  on 
a globule  of  ether,  beneath  which  stands  only  his  ‘ word  of 
power.’  It  is  shown  us  in  miracles  ; where  the  prophet’s  rod 
opens  paths  through  the  waves  before  whose  recoil  the  chari- 
ots are  as  chaff ; where  the  dust  and  the  spittle  are  omnipotent 
through  his  will  for  removing  the  blindness  that  no  surgery 
touches ; where  the  tones  of  the  voice  are  indued  with  a po- 
tency that  masters  the  storm  and  raises  the  dead.  It  is  shown 
us,  as  brightly  as  any  where  else,  in  this  progress  of  the  Gos- 
pel ; where  the  humblest  of  energies  become  clothed  with 
supremacy,  when  auxiliary  to  his  aim ; where  is  suddenly 
brought  to  light  what  had  lain  deeply  hidden,  that  it  may  work 
his  wondrous  will ; and  where  what  appeared  to  have  no 
existence  is  invested  in  his  plans  with  irresistible  efficiency. 

What  a resource  for  our  hearts  ; what  an  unfailing  stimulus 
to  our  too  often  fainting  faith  ; what  a ground  of  awe,  and 
love,  and  wonder,  more  vivid  and  vast  than  the  theophany  upon 
Sinai,  is  the  discovery  thus  made  of  Him  ! How  plainly  does 
prophecy  become  possible  to  him,  who  knows  from  the  begin- 
ning all  these  occult  forces  which  he  is  to  marshall  and  make 

O 

to  determine  the  history  of  the  world ! And  what  a privilege  is 
Prayer  shown  to  be,  when  we  place  it  in  its  relation  to  His 
supreme  mind,  to  His  all-controlling  and  absolute  will ! 

And  further,  let  us  notice  the  interpreting  tower  of  this 
same  Divine  element  in  more  recent  history  ; the  light  which 
it  casts  on  the  subsequent  changes  that  have  marked  the 
advance  of  Christianity  in  the  world.  Every  where  we  shall 
find  it,  if  wo  search  for  it  aright,  gleaming  as  a thread  of 


35 


heavenly  gold  throughout  the  tangled  and  bloody  annals  that 
cover  the  interval  between  Paul’s  day  and  ours. 

After  he  had  long  ascended  to  his  rest,  and  the  Christian 
temple  long  had  stood  on  the  very  site  of  Nero’s  circus,  there 
came  that  time  beneath  whose  darkness  history  yet  shivers, 
when  all  the  fearful  agencies  of  ill,  which  had  apparently 
finally  been  scattered,  seemed  to  rally  again  and  re-combine, 
in  different  forms  but  with  the  same  spirit,  once  more  to  with- 
stand and  overpower  the  Gospel ; when  Romanism  was  supreme, 
— the  old  Heathenism  over,  though  baptized  with  new  titles 
and  adorned  with  new  splendor, — over  Western  Europe;  when 
Western  Europe,  and  Romanism  through  it,  was  as  mightily 
predominant  as  the  Empire  had  been  in  human  civilization  ; 
when  Mohammedanism  confronted  it,  with  flaming  sword  and 
fanatical  zeal,  in  the  very  seats  where  Judaism  had  been ; and 
when  Heathenism,  bulwarked  behind  this  false  faith,  remained 
undisturbed  and  even  unquestioned  over  the  remaining  area 
of  Asia.  Again  the  whole  power  of  the  world  seemed  com- 
pacted, to  crowd  back  the  truth  from  the  minds  of  mankind ; 
and  again  there  appeared,  looming  darkly  above  this,  an 
almost  unworldly  malignity  and  energy,  working  tireless  and 
triumphant  for  the  same  drear  result.  And  again  it  seemed, 
as  it  had  done  of  old,  like  looking  to  see  the  Alps  melt 
away,  or  the  continents  and  seas  exchange  their  conditions,  to 
expect  such  powers  of  ill  to  be  vanquished,  such  prodigious 
establishments  to  be  remoulded. 

But  again  the  possibilities  which  men  had  not  considered, 
the  germs  of  things  which  they  had  not  discerned,  were  God’s 
chosen  and  adequate  instruments  for  his  end  ; and  he  brought 
them  out  from  their  silent  retreats,  and  made  them  victorious 
over  all  that  opposed  him.  Kindling  the  primitive  fires 
again  in  the  souls  of  his  faithful,  by  the  word  of  his  Gospel 
and  the  touch  of  his  Spirit,  he  made  their  lips  aud  lives  to  be 
vocal,  as  had  been  those  of  the  primitive  martyrs.  He  shot 
an  inspiration  over  the  nations,  from  the  prisons  of  Lollards  and 


36 


the  stake  of  John  Huss.  He  stirred  new  longings  in  Rome 
itself,  after  a higher  Christian  life.  He  made  the  progress  of 
scientific  thought  contribute  to  the  movement  which  thus 
constantly  broadened.  He  awakened  and  invigorated,  and 
brought  to  powerful  development  and  action,  the  elements 
which  worked  toward  national  liberation  and  popular  free- 
dom, and  made  these  auxiliary  to  his  august  plan.  And  then 
he  gathered  around  these  forces,  nascent  only  as  yet  though 
full  of  promise,  such  an  armory  of  instruments,  suddenly 
revealed,  as  no  other  age  had  ever  possessed.  He  unfolded 
the  mystic  might  of  the  type,  which  makes  human  thought 
palpable.  He  brought  to  view  other  worlds  by  the  telescope, 
and  disclosed  the  true' stellar  and  planetary  system,  to  shake 
men’s  faith  in  the  ‘ infallible’  Church  which  had  passionately 
denied  this.  He  picked  up  this  continent  out  of  the  seas,  by 
the  touch  of  that  needle  which  is  as  his  own  finger  of  light, 
guiding  the  mariner  through  the  darkness.  He  put  the  Bible, 
in  the  speech  of  the  people,  into  the  hands  of  all  who  could 
read,  and  made  powerless  beside  it  the  priestly  establishments 
which  were  based  upon  ignorance  and  bulwarked  by  force. 
He  wrenched  at  last  the  whole  of  Northern  Europe  from  the 
grasp  of  the  Papacy,  put  a commerce  into  its  hands  wider 
than  the  ancients  ever  had  dreamed  of,  and  inspired  it  by  de- 
grees with  a devotion  to  the  truth  unknown  till  then  since 
the  era  of  the  Apostles.  He  peopled  this  continent  with  a 
Christian  colonization,  insignificant  in  its  beginning,  ap- 
parently almost  accidental  in  its  direction,  but  providential  in 
its  movement,  and  amazing  in  its  growth.  He  drew  out  the 
energy  from  that  Southern  Europe  which  still  remained 
Romanist.,  and  equally  from  that  fierce  and  aggressive  Mo- 
hammedanism which  so  long  had  arrested  the  advance  of  the 
Gospel.  And  so  he  brought  the  world  to  this  stage  in  which 
it  meets  us : with  Protestantism  prevalent  aud  Romanism 
weak,  both  in  Europe  and  here ; with  Mohammedanism  shat- 


37 


tcred  in  the  centres  of  its  power,  and  Heathenism  pierced  at 
multitudes  of  points  by  the  progress  of  the  Gospel ; with  the 
whole  world  now  open  to  the  march  of  the  truth.  And  in  all 
the  long  progress,  his  method  has  been  that  which  the  text 
first  declared.  He  has  conquered  the  powers  that  seemed  ir- 
resistible, and  overturned  the  establishments  that  looked  solid 
as  the  earth,  not  by  great  forces  at  which  all  the  world  won- 
dered, by  monarchies  and  their  might,  by  universities  and  their 
learning,  by  military  movements  and  magnificent  diploma- 
cies, but  just  as  of  old  by  the  things  which  ‘were  not’  till 
He  bade  them  to  be ; which  existed  but  in  germ,  unrevealed 
to  the  knowledge  or  the  hope  of  mankind. 

It  is  the  key  which  unlocks  for  us  nistory.  It  is  the  method 
which  shows  God  supreme,  and  still  active  in  the  world,  and 
which  associates  distant  ages  in  the  long  triumphal  procession 
of  his  plans.  He  uses  most  these  minor  means,  that  we  may 
hear  his  sounding  steps  reverberating  on  earth.  He  brings  in 
ever  the  ultimate  triumph  of  his  truth  and  his  Son,  through 
the  humbleness  of  the  manger  and  the  sorrows  of  the  mount. 
He  leaves  the  earthquake  to  shake  the  lands,  and  go  vibrating 
on  to  the  caverns  where  it  hides.  He  leaves  the  wind  to 
whirl  over  the  surface,  and  mingle  again  in  the  quietness  of 
the  azure.  He  leaves  the  fire  to  blaze  ineffectual  into  the 
heavens,  and  expire  amid  a smoke  which  the  star-beams  soon 
pierce.  But  he  utters  Himself  in  the  ‘still  small  voice.’ 

We  cannot,  I think,  be  content  without  noticing  the  rela- 
tion which  the  truth  thus  declared  to  us  by  Paul  sustains  to  our 
owx  Land  and  Time  ; the  light  which  it  casts  on  those  purposes 
of  God  which  already  we  feel  to  be  wheeling  through  the 
mists,  and  articulating  themselves  amid  the  uproar  and 
tumult,  with  which  we  are  environed. 

What  is  the  lesson  it  teaches  here  ? Is  it  that  the  Govern- 
ment which  so  long  has  been  powerful  is  to  be  overturned 
by  the  startling  Rebellion  which  so  recently  was  not,  but 


88 


which  now  has  expanded  to  colossal  proportions  ? that  God 
thus  designs  to  exalt  the  mean  thing  to  a might  unexpected, 
and  to  vindicate  his  supremacy  through  the  triumph  which 
he  gives  it  over  that  which  it  seemed  inadequate  to  shake  ? 
Nay  ! but  the  line  in  which  he  chooses  to  do  this  is  the  line, 
you  observe,  in  which  his  ancient  plans  advance  to  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  world  to  allegiance  to  his  Son.  The  things  which 
are  mighty,  and  which  he  overturns,  are  those  which  obstruct, 
not  those  which  assist,  this  beneficent  progress.  And  the 
feeble  and  obscure  things  to  which  he;’gives  effectiveness,  are 
those  which  are  adapted  by  their  nature  to  his  work ; which 
are  marked  from  the  beginning  by  a radical  righteousness, 
though  at  the  beginning  most  faint  in  development ; whose 
expansion  is  therefore  harmonious  with  his  character,  as  well 
as  directly  auxiliary  to  his  aim.  And  so  this  is  not  the  lesson 
which  is  taught  for  our  times  by  the  text.  A diverse  applica- 
tion is  that  which  it  has  for  them. 

Our  Government  in  the  past,  so  broad  in  its  basis,  so  noble 
in  its  frame,  budded  so  grandly  on  primordial  truths,  and 
seemingly  riveted  to  them  so  firmly  by  the  terms  of  its  charter 
and  the  traditions  of  its  founders,  has  still  been  confronted, 
and  to  some  extent  combined,  in  unnatural  alliance,  with  an- 
other its  opposite.  Perverted  by  this,  in  many  of  its  officers, 
laws,  and  operations,  it  has  been  rendered  in  some  degree,  it 
has  been  in  peril  of  being  rendered  more  largely,  a bulwark 
of  bondage,  and  not  a grand  power  for  popular  liberation ; the 
ally  of  a force  which  would  shut  the  book  of  God  to  a race, 
and  not  of  the  faith  which  would  open  it  to  all  men ; the  min- 
ister of  a rule  before  which  the  family-institute  is  nothing,  and 
not  of  the  great  idea  of  the  Scriptures  that  the  family  in- 
violate is  the  solid  corner-stone  of  all  civilization,  the  first 
and  most  sacred  of  governments  and  of  churches.  It  has 
seemed  sometimes  that  this  abnormal  system — this  marvellous 
complication  of  legalized  lies,  fronting  the  heavens  in  our  late 
century — was  so  established  in  all  our  seats  of  ancient  renown 


39 


and  national  power  that  nothing  could  shake  it ; that  every 
institution,  officer,  law,  must  be  subservient  to  its  behests. 
Strong  in  the  wealth  produced  for  it  by  millions  of  laborers  un- 
requited ; crafty  in  the  policy  and  effective  in  the  tactics 
which  leisure  gave  its  leaders  opportunity  to  master ; domi- 
neering in  its  spirit  and  tenacious  in  its  will  as  was  the  Roman 
Empire  first,  and  the  Papacy  afterward ; aiming  at  incessant 
renewal  and  expansion,  and  even  with  a certain  religious  fa- 
naticism confusing  its  conscience  and  intensifying  its  passion, — 
it  has  looked  to  those  who  have  studied  it  in  the  past  too  vast 
to  be  avoided,  too  strong  to  be  subdued  ; almost  certainly  the 
master  of  our  national  policy  for  generations  to  come  ; whose 
pride  and  might  would  be  only  cemented  with  the  progress  of 
time,  and  to  shake  whose  dominion  were  like  breaking  the 
Alleghanies  into  a prairie. 

But  God  has  taken  the  impalpable  powers  of  thought  and 
prayer,  which  alone  remained  to  set  against  this,  and  has 
made  them  mighty  as  of  old  on  his  errand.  The  weak  and 
despised,  and  the  base  things  of  earth,  yea,  even  the  things 
which ‘were  not’ when  he  commenced,  he  has  made  in  part 
victorious  already  over  this  gigantic  and  inveterate  system. 
He  is  carrying  them  forward,  let  none  of  us  doubt,  to  their 
certain  consummation.  If  we  are  true  to  ourselves  and  to 
Him,  it  is  Slavery  that  is  going  down,  not  our  benign  and 
venerated  Government,  in  this  fierce  struggle  which  agitates 
the  land.  It  is  Slavery  which  is  to  disappear  in  the  end  from 
its  last  stronghold  within  nominal  Christendom.  The  truths 
that  started  in  so  much  feebleness,  that  gained  so  tardy  and 
reluctant  an  acceptance  from  even  the  minds  which  most  were 
attuned  to  them,  that  have  had  to  encounter  such  constant 
opposition,  and  whose  power  to  overcome  it  has  seemed  so 
slight — they  have  mastered  many  mechanisms,  and  enthroned 
themselves  in  pulpits  ; they  have  found  multitudinous  voices 
in  literature  ; they  have  organized  themselves  by  degrees  into 
statesmanship  ; they  have  had  their  martyrs  here  and  there,  as 


40 


all  great  truths  must  have  to  be  vindicated  as  such  ; they 
have  reached  and  grappled  the  popular  conscience,  inspired 
and  directed  political  action,  and  at  last  have  placed  their 
nearest  representatives  among  public  men  in  the  chief  seats  of 
power,  and  have  crowded  the  imperious  and  exasperated  sys- 
tem which  has  Avatched  their  advance,  and  has  frantically  re- 
sisted the  approach  of  its  end,  to  a point  where  it  snatches  up 
arms  in  rebellion,  and  makes  civil  war  to  blaze  and  thunder 
for  the  first  time  in  our  history — and  also  for  the  last  ! — along 
the  mid  line  of  our  peaceful  confederacy. 

And  here,  as  of  old,  other  instruments  that  were  not  till  God 
bade  them  to  be,  are  now  made  auxiliary  to  the  spiritual 
forces  of  the  truth  and  of  righteousness.  The  wondrous  up- 
rising of  an  intense  patriotism,  which  flashed  with  actual 
lightning-speed  from  New-York  to  the  Pacific,  from  the  shades 
of  Katahdin  to  Californian  valleys,  when  the  outcry  went 
forth  that  by  bullets  and  bombs  the  old  imperial  starry  flag, 
riddled  and  rent,  but  undisgraced,  had  been  hurled  from  the 
bastion ; the  amazing  military  development  that  has  followed  ; 
the  unexampled  enthusiasm  of  the  whole  Northern  mind  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  government,  and  the  extent  to  which 
already  it  is  impregnated  with  a principled  and  determined 
detestation  of  Slavery  ; the  immense  expansion  of  the  culture 
of  cotton  beneath  the  vast  stimulus  which  now  is  applied  to  it, 
preparing  it  every  where  to  spring  up  more  profusely,  till  it 
binds  in  the  filaments  of  its  delicate  fibres  that  system  which 
thought  to  command  the  world  by  a monopoly  of  its  staple — 
all  these  are  things  which  were  not  at  first,  which  -were  not  a 
year  since,  which  not  the  most  prescient  could  have  anticipated, 
but  through  which  and  by  which  God  will  vindicate  his  su- 
premacy, and  overwhelm  that  which  would  hinder  his  Gospel 
from  largest  publication. 

As  in  all  our  career — wherein  a faith  that  seemed  so  ob- 
scuro  surmounted  at  first  the  obstacles  that  were  mighty, 
wherein  the  scattered  and  fragmentary  colonies  humbled  the 


41 


empire  which  threatened  at  the  outset  to  crush  them  by  its 
weight,  wherein  the  inventions  that  subdue  to  man’s  use  the 
unfatigueable  powers  of  nature  have  arisen  to  displace  and  re- 
place the  old  instruments  in  so  swift  a succession, — as  in  all 
our  career,  so  here,  most  of  all,  shall  the  principle  of  the  text 
be  vindicated  to  us:  when  the  final  demolition  of  Slavery  shall 
have  come ; and  when,  as  Pericles  built  the  Odeum,  for  great  mu- 
sical performances,  out  of  the  masts  of  Persian  vessels  captured 
at  Marathon,  so  the  generations  which  come  after  us  shall 
find  that  that  magnificent  and  durable  temple  which  is  here  to 
be  erected  to  Universal  Freedom,  and  within  which  shall 
arise,  age  after  age,  the  Te  Deums  of  millions,  has  taken  its 
stateliest  proportions  and  pillars  from  the  shattered  strength 
and  the  vanquished  rage  of  this  present  Rebellion  ! 

And,  finally : how  the  whole  pressure  of  the  theme  bears 
instantly  and  always  on  our  Missionary  Enterprise  ; and  what 
an  animating  view  does  it  open  of  the  prospects  of  this  work 
in  the  ages  to  come  ! We  cannot  close  but  with  this  thought. 

Last  year,  as  was  fit,  our  minds  were  turned  backward 
along  the  magnificent  march  of  the  work  up  to  that  anni- 
versary ; and  with  grateful  hearts  and  praising  lips  we  could 
but  exclaim,  at  the  end  of  the  Half-century,  “ What  hath  God 
wrought  ” ! We  will  not  forget  the  successes  then  recited.  W e 
will  not  let  slip  from  the  hold  of  our  minds  the  great  memories 
then  awakened.  Our  thoughts  and  hearts  are  anchored  still 
to  the  colleges,  churches,  and  schools  of  the  prophets,  in  which 
this  Society  had  its  commencement.  Our  tender  recollections 
cling  still  to  the  homes  amid  whose  piety  has  been  nurtured 
the  faith  which  has  signalized  its  annals  ; to  the  graves  where 
so  much  devoted  life,  the  dignity  of  man  and  the  beauty  of 
woman,  has  gone  down  in  its  service  from  the  vision  of  men ; 
to  the  scenes  which  are  forever  consecrated,  by  the  labors  of 
its  teachers,  and  the  sacrifice  of  its  martyrs.  Blessing  and 
honor  and  glory  and  *power  be  unto  Him  who  hath  raised  it 


42 


up,  and  girded  and  hallowed  it,  and  given  it  His  help  ! Its 
past  is  secure ; and  in  the  clear  effulgence  of  that  our  souls 
grow  bright. 

But  standing  to-night  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  its 
second  Half-century,  and  assembled  as  we  are  in  this  beautiful 
city  which  was  not  in  existence  when  its  labors  commenced — 
looking  out  on  these  regions,  then  almost  untrodden,  whose 
lakes  and  prairies  and  river-vallies,  stretching  on  to  the  Paci- 
fic, are  teeming  now  with  so  copious  a life,  which  is  organizing 
so  fast  into  Christian  communities, — it  is  not  possible  but  that 
we  look  forward,  and  anticipate  what  the  present  period,  in 
its  swift  circuit,  shall  also  bring.  And  so  looking  on,  what  in- 
vigorating influences  rain  upon  us  from  the  text ! What  vistas 
of  glorious  and  immeasurable  advancement  for  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ  open  in  bright  perspective  before  us  ! 

It  is  inspiring  to  think  of  those  far-scattered  preachers,  some 
of  whose  associates  are  with  us  to-night,  who  are  carrying  the 
great  truths  which  apostles  first  bore,  to  distant  lands ; again 
establishing  missionary  churches;  again  reducing  the  languages 
that  are  Pagan,  and  that  have  been  from  the  start,  to  the  mas- 
tery of  Christ.  Prom  city  and  jungle,  from  coral  islands  and 
the  echoing  marge  of  ancient  continents,  we  know  their 
thoughts  and  hearts  turn  hither;  and  to  them  all  our  souls 
send  back  their  glad  All-IIail ! But  it  is,  if  possible,  more  in- 
spiring still,  not  to  our  affection,  but  to  our  courage,  to  think 
of  those  impersonal  forces,  unknown  as  yet  even  by  us, 
which  God  has  marshalled  for  his  work ; which  cannot  die, 
and  shall  not  fail,  and  which  he  will  use,  each  in  its  time,  for 
his  fit  end.  It  is  wonderful  that  he  should  have  set  in  Hin- 
dostan,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  in  such  uttermost 
weakness,  and  with  such  absolute  unconsciousness  on  the  part 
of  his  instruments,  the  seminal  principle  of  that  English  do- 
minion which,  beginning  when  Elizabeth  irradiated  England 
with  the  brilliance  of  her  reign,  hath  waited  for  its  fulfilment 


43 


to  the  (lay  of  her  latest  and  loveliest  successor.  It  is  wonder- 
ful that  Australia,  first  seen  by  the  Portuguese,  and  whose 
neighboring  islands,  with  the  glittering  name  of  Islands  of 
Gold,  were  first  linked  to  Europe  by  the  commerce  of  the 
Spaniard,  should  still  have  remained  for  two  centuries  and  a 
half  unoccupied  by  settlements,  till  there  as  well  English 
colonies  were  planted,  and  English  influence  made  supreme. 
But  who  does  not  see  that  the  Protestant  energy  which  per- 
vades those  vast  regions  is  to  be  henceforth  the  dominant 
power  in  Asia  and  the  Pacific  ; and  that  the  beginnings,  so 
feeble  and  so  distant,  held  in  them  the  germs  of  Christ’s  ulti- 
mate victory  ? It  was  not  known,  when  the  missionary  spirit 
first  awoke  in  this  country,  that  the  era  of  steam-navigation 
was  at  hand,  to  give  to  commerce  world-wide  enlargement 
and  lock  all  lands  in  alliances  of  trade.  It  was  not  known, 
when  all  Christian  missions  began  to  need  a rapid  expansion, 
that  the  picking  up  of  a flake  or  two  of  gold  in  the  dry  beds 
of  streams  with  which  Indians  and  Mexicans  had  long  been 
familiar,  was  to  augment  the  wealth  of  this  country  and  of 
Europe  by  incredible  additions,  and  to  furnish  the  resources 
for  which  millions  had  been  praying.  But  so  has  God  made 
the  things  unexpected,  and  the  things  that  looked  trivial,  the 
things  which  he  alone  foresaw,  to  fit  into  and  further  his  on- 
working  plans.  And  so  shall  he  do  throughout  the  future. 

The  obstacles  before  us  seem  great  sometimes,  but  how  small 
they  all  are  beside  those  which  already  have  been  overcome  ; 
and  how  certain  it  is  that  even  already  the  forces  are  at  work, 
not  yet  to  be  recognized  probably  by  us,  before  which  they 
all  shall  come  to  nought ; before  which  worships,  castes,  and 
despotisms,  shall  melt  as  melts  the  morning  mist ; before 
which  new  men  shall  spring  to  action,  new  routes  of  travel  and 
trade  be  opened,  new  nations  be  inspired  with  evangelical 
fervor,  our  country  be  made  more  than  ever  heretofore  a mis- 
sionary land,  and  the  fierceness  of  the  world  be  subdued  unto 
Christ. 


u 


Onr  grand  prerogative  is  it  to  know  this : that  all  things 
coming  are  our  helpers ; that  as  fast  as  the  possible  becomes  real- 
ized and  actual,  it  assists  our  advance ! That  which  statesmen 
always  fear,  is  these  possibilities  which  they  can  not  yet  measure. 
What  makes  the  hearts  of  monarchs  quake,  amid  palaces  and 
armies,  is  the  chance  that  already,  among  the  secret  seeds  of 
things,  is  germinating  that  which  shall  threaten  their  thrones* 
But  all  these  boundless  possibilities  are  ours.  These  germi- 
nating influences,  every  one  of  them  is  for  us.  God’s  mind 
controls  and  chooses  all.  They  are  indeed  his  selected 
auxiliaries,  for  the  furtherance  of  his  plans.  And  we  have 
but  to  advance  in  the  line  which  He  marks  out,  to  find  them 
all  our  unwearied  fellow- workers ; to  find  the  Half-century 
of  missionary  history  which  we  have  commenced,  full  even  to 
the  end  of  still  culminating  successes ! Over  every  discourage- 
ment, and  to  every  fresh  victory,  He  shall  lift  us  by  means 
which  we  least  had  anticipated.  The  most  solid  of  the  barriers 
that  still  stand  in  our  path,  already  the  unseen  and  impalpable 
agencies  are  conspiring  for  its  downfall.  And  the  great  revo- 
lutions which,  when  they  come,  shall  startle  and  amaze  us,  lie 
really  infolded  already,  did  we  know  it,  in  forces  and  causes 
which  we  have  not  discerned. 

Let  us  know,  then,  beforehand,  what  the  issue  is  to  be,  and 
take  hold  on  it  with  our  faith.  Let  us  look  upon  Nature, 
Commerce,  the  Arts,  on  the  movements  of  states,  the  changes 
of  dynasties,  and  feel  that  in  all  of  them  lie  hid  our  helpers. 
Let  us  never  be  discouraged,  and  never  be  timid,  till  the  end 
is  attained,  or  till  our  life  closes.  And  let  us  know  that  when 
the  end  has  fully  come ; when  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are 
all  the  Lord’s,  in  loyal  faith ; when  every  shackle  at  last  is 
loosed,  and  every  home  is  free  and  secure;  when  from  each  hill 
to  every  other  there  rings  abroad  the  shout  of  joy,  and  over 
every  outstretched  plain  there  streams  the  Gospel’s  radiant 
morn  ; when  all  the  world  securely  rests  in  perfect  love,  and 
that  various  beauty  which  no  autumn  can  typify  lias  robed  its 


45 


coasts  in  hues  and  lights  which  arc  the  reflection  of  that  great 
Bow  bended  of  God  around  His  throne — it  shall  be  seen  em- 
blazoned in  light  on  the  long  progress,  it  shall  be  heard  re- 
sounding in  music  from  every  part  of  the  vast  triumph  : 
“The  Things  that  were” — so  ancient,  proud,  and  full  of 
might — by  “ the  Things  that  were  not,”  they  are  all  brought 
to  nought ! 

God  make  the  truth  our  teacher  here  ; and  make  its  fruits 
our  glory  there  ; and  unto  Him  be  all  the  praise!  Amen. 


fit. 


* 


